


Life in colour

by Justasmalltownfangirl



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Colors, Fake Marriage, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4571127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justasmalltownfangirl/pseuds/Justasmalltownfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this world, there is only black and white. Unless you're lucky enough to meet your soulmate, that is.<br/>John Watson is one of the lucky ones, apart from the fact that his wife isn't who she says she is. And the mysterious man that he just can't get out his head, or his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is in no way original and my idea. I found this AU on tumblr and started writing it a very long time ago. But somewhere along the way I supposed I lost interest and deleted it all, until I started thinking about it again and decided to go for it. The original fic was nowhere to be found, so I re-wrote it and voilá!  
> Also, I'm a sucker for comments and I would really love getting some on this one ;)

Even in this world they say you have moments of clarity. A second when you're hit so hard with a realization that suddenly seems obvious that it waddles your beliefs and shakes your entire world. What was impossible one second is possible the next, and what was once out of reach is suddenly in the palm of your hands.

They say these moments changes everything. Suddenly your life is upside down. What was wrong is right, what was bad is good, someone who was nothing but a friend turns out to be everything you have ever wanted and more. The world is a different place than what it was before, and the people in it have a different meaning to you. You never know when it will hit you, but when it does it does it hard and leaves nothing untouched and the same.

But there is a world where these moments are if possible even more clear and changes a lot more. In this world, there are no colours, except for the very few privileged that have had this moment I've been speaking of. In this world, that moment is always the moment you first see your soulmate, your better half, the rest of your life. Call it whatever you want, it's _that_ person. When you first set eyes on each other everything changes. The world is dark and cold no more, the grim black, grey and white are gone. Left is a bright and colourful world where everything is possible.

You see, if a man has lived a life without ever seeing anything but black and white, colours are bound to be a huge spectacle. If you look closely, can't you see how beautiful absolutely everything is? Can't you see how gorgeous all colours are and what a miracle it is that we can see them? I don't think you can, no, just to a certain point. Because we see them everyday and we've grown used to them. They are ordinary to us when they shouldn't be. So imagine, imagine a man that has never seen colours before, imagine how wonderful it must be for him, what an absolute miracle it must feel like.

Because the colours, they aren't there. It's merely light reflecting against objects, and we create the colours ourselves. Well, those of us who has that ability do. In this world almost everyone possesses that ability and we think no further of it, but in this other world you need help to do it. You need to see something as wonderful and fantastic as the colours in order to be able to see them too. This something is never an object, this something is always a someone.

Of course, this is something rare that doesn't occur regularly. It's a one in a milion sort of thing, and you need to be pretty damn lucky to have it happen to you.

But imagine seeing someone for the first time and seeing the entire world get colours in front of your very eyes. Imagine how it must feel to be able to be completely sure about something, to actually  _know_ . You wouldn't have to lay awake at night and analyze your feelings, you wouldn't have to walk home wondering if you made the right call, you wouldn't have to doubt that you two could ever end happily. You would be certain, you would be sure, you would know.

Unless, of course, you wouldn't.

***

John Watson had an ordinary morning and was set on having an ordinary day. He woke up in his ordinary single bed after an ordinary nightmare about the war and drank an ordinary disgusting cup of coffee on his ordinary uncomfortable chair. His leg ached in its ordinary way, and he jumped at any loud noises in his ordinary fashion. It was ordinary, and he didn't know that he would never have an ordinary day for the rest of his life.

On the tube a woman gave up his seat for him, but he declined where he stood with his cane and almost fell over every time they stopped or started moving again. But he was set on managing on his own, like he always had and always would, and refused to sit down. If she had been just a little more persistent he would have yelled at her.

When he walked through the park he had to sit down on a bench for a few minutes, so exhausted was he and so badly did his leg hurt. He tried to think about anything else but couldn't escape the throbbing pain and the way it sometimes shot out into his entire body. Putting any weight on that leg was like playing roulette, as it could cave in under him any second and leave him falling flat on his face and looking like a complete loon. It was better to sit there for a while and gain some strength than to risk that, even if it meant that he would be in a bit late.

Eventually John took a deep breath and stood up again. His leg shook a little but didn't give up just yet. He would manage, probably.

The snow had just melted and the sky was clear. A person that saw anything but black and white would had called it beautiful. John Watson called it nothing. It looked exactly the same as it had done the day before and he didn't yet know how different it would look the day after.

He reached the hospital a few minutes after his shift had started but didn't hurry, everyone knew he was always late, and what else could they expect from a man with a cane? He pushed the door open slowly and took his time walking up to the reception.

”Good morning”, he mumbled.

As he kept his eyes at the floor the entire time, afraid that he would step on something and be unable to regain his balance, he didn't see either of them at first. He managed to get all the way up to the desk before he looked up and saw them, and the world seemed to explode in front of him.

It was as if lightning strook down at that very spot, and for a second he was blinded by a fierce white light and stumbled backwards so that he almost fell over. And then when he could see again, everything looked different.

It was bright and it was full of colours. He had never seen such diversity, had never seen things beside each other look so different. It was yellow, blue, pink, red, green, orange and different shades and variations of them all. He had to turn around and look at the entire room and it was so beautiful that he forgot to breathe. There were streaks of blue on the white walls, the couch was green and the plastic chairs were red. The table was dark brown and all the magazines on it had different colours for their the names. The cat on the poster was orange and the apples on the one next to it were a mix of red and yellow. It was strange to think that for so long he had passed through that very same waiting room without seeing all of that, that he had never taken notice of anything, and suddenly he just did.

Still in awe he turned back, fully set on seeing even more beautiful things at and behind the desk, but only one thing caught his eye. She was his age, somewhere in her late 30's. Her hair was blonde and ended just where her neck started, her skin smooth and light, her lips were pink and full and her eyes big and blue. She was sat behind the counter and was by miles the most beautiful thing in there and John just knew, he just knew that this was all because of her. And judging by the large smile on her face, she knew it too.

”Hello”, he said.

”Hi”, she replied with a giggle.

He reached out his hand for her.

”Doctor John Watson.”

”Mary Morstan”, she said while shaking his hand. ”I'm the new receptionist. I started today.”

She held it too long and they just stared at each other. There were so many colours. He could have looked at her all day.

But then someone cleared his throat next to him, which caused him to pull his hand back and turn to find a man standing there. He was a few years younger than the both of them and much taller too, had dark brown curly hair and eyes that appeared to be every shade of blue possible all at once and was dressed in a dark, long coat and a blue scarf.

”Yes?” John said, irritated over being interrupted and angry at this man for ruining what had to be the biggest moment of his life.

”I couldn't help but overhear your name and it was you I came here looking for”, the man said with a deep voice.

”What for?” John sneered.

”I'm conducting an investigation of a crime-”

”So you're a police officer?”

The man smiled as if he was both amused and appalled of the possibility.

”God, no. I'm a-”

”Why are you here then?”

John thought it good to make a habit of interrupting him, as he had done himself.

”I think you-”

”Am I a suspect?”

He knew it was getting ridicilous now, but he couldn't help it. All he wanted was to get rid of him and get to know this Mary Morstan, because he had waited his entire life to meet her.

”Certainly not”, the man replied, now with an anger to his voice that told John that he was best to stay quiet this time. ”I thought you might have information about a case, but I see now that you are indeed not available.”

”Correct.”

The other man frowned.

”I shall return tomorrow, then. When you're not as _preoccupied_ ”, he added, with a look of disgust aimed at the receptionist.

”Do so”, John replied, his focus already back at her.

Her cheeks were a little blushed and she got tiny dimples when she smiled.

”You have patients”, she said.

”I do, don't I?”

She laughed. He would rather have spent the entire day with her, but he couldn't go get himself fired now. He would have a wedding to pay for soon.  
”Dinner?” he asked.

”Sure”, she replied.

”Send them in in five”, he said before he went to his office.

John Watson had never met a person that saw colours. Truth be told, he had often wondered if it even was possible. It had sounded very made up to a person who had seen a war. But he couldn't argue with the fact that now his office suddenly had green walls and his chair was a dark blue.

He looked himself in the mirror and found that not only did he have dark blond hair, but also that his clothes didn't match one bit. And those shoes needed to be gotten rid of. They were black, and hideous. What was the point of having colors if he would walk around with black shoes?

The first patient that came in had pink hair. It was absolutely gorgeous.

***

Mary Morstan was perfect. He took her to the nicest place he knew and she loved it. She ate the same thing as him and adored the wine he had chosen. She told him he looked very dapper in his suit. He told her she looked stunning in her dress. Purple, it was. And beautiful. But not quite as beautiful as her.

She was an orphan – he was sorry – and had no siblings. She had spent many years abroad in the states and had only just returned. She loved cats and admitted under many giggles that she had a tattoo of a butterfly on her hip that no one knew about.

They had decided to get married before the night was over. In this particular world there's never any confusion, there's never any uncertainty, there's never a 'let's wait and see what happens'. They were destined to be together forever, might as well make it official, might as well rub it in everyone's faces, and they couldn't do it fast enough. When you know, you know.

He walked her home in the middle of the night and her hand fitted perfectly in his, as if they had been made for each other. He felt like it was supposed to be there and he had been waiting for it forever. He only let go because he had to go home and sleep before he would need to work again.

They kissed outside her door. He had expected it to be big and different, but it was surprisingly ordinary. He was a little disappointment, but what had he expected? Seeing stars? Feeling like he had finally found home? He stopped thinking about it, because it was ridicilous, really. And then he walked home, supported on a cane that almost felt unnecessary now.

For the first time in ages he slept through the entire night without a single nightmare.

He had already forgotten about the man that was not a police officer and had said that he would come back.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The case in this chapter is a mix of "A study in scarlet" and "A study in pink", but isn't entirely like either the book or the show.

He didn't have to sit on the bench in the park that morning. He didn't want to either. He couldn't get to Mary fast enough. He even came in early, and there she was behind the desk, still a little of last night's makeup on her face.

”Good morning”, she said.

”Good morning”, he said.

He reached over the desk and kissed her and didn't care that it was unprofessional. He'd gone an entire night, no, an entire  _life_ , without kissing her. Now he could, so now he would.

”If someone's early, just send them in anyway”, he said as he walked away.

”Will do”, she replied.

He was completely uninterested in anyone that stepped through the door, until he was about to leave for lunch and in stepped the very same man he had met the day before.

”I'm sorry”, he told him. ”It appears I'm preoccupied today as well. I'm just going out for lunch.”

”Why then I'll join you”, the stranger said as his eyes flew across the entire room in a rapid pace and seemed to take in absolutely everything in there.

”I was actally going out with my fiancée-”

”The receptionist”, the man finished. ”So I noticed. But I promise you this is more important.”

This man was arrogant, a little creepy and hadn't looked at him once since he had gotten there, yet John didn't want to say no.

”How so?” he asked, because he couldn't help but be a little intrigued and very excited over the prospect of helping solving a crime.

The stranger suddenly looked right at him and smirked.

”There's this lovely little place on Torquay Terrace”, he said. ”Charpentier's. Will it do?”

John had never heard of Charpentier's, but it did very well and before he knew it they were in a cab heading towards Torquay Terrace.

”So, what is this case you're investigating?” John asked, as the odd fellow had been quiet the entire journey.

”A murder”, he replied.

”Do you mind me asking why you are investigating it, if you're not a police officer?”

At this point the man turned to him with an odd look on his face.

”As a matter of fact, I do mind”, he said. ”Do you mind being quiet until we get to the pub?”

John didn't mind, if he was going to be that unpleasant every time he opened his mouth.

And at the pub they arrived. It was dark and gloomy and smelled of smoke. The menus were rough around the edges and hard to read in the bad lightning, but John finally managed to make out that they had fish and chips and made his order.

”I'm not having anything”, the other man told the waitress.

John couldn't help but get irritated over being dragged halfway across town to eat at this dump with someone who didn't wish to talk to or eat with him when he could have had a pleasant meal with Mary instead.

”Why did you join me for lunch if you didn't plan on eating?” he asked. ”And why did you drag me here, of all places?”

”I though it'd be nicer”, the man in the coat mumbled while looking out through the window.

”You haven't _been_ here?”

”No, I have not.”

John laughed.

”Could you at least tell me what this is all about?” he demanded. ”Because I'll get up and walk out of here any second now.”

He saw a sudden desperation flash across the other man's eyes.

”I will”, he said. ”Just stay.”

John's food arrived so fast that they couldn't possibly have cooked it after he ordered it. Finally the man who had dragged him there started speaking.

”Earlier this week an American named Enoch Drebber was murdered – stabbed to death, if you must – in an abandoned house at Lauriston Gardens”, he said. ”And I have every right to believe that his murderer is a patient of yours.”

”How so?” John asked, with his mouth full of fish that didn't really taste anything.

”Because I've managed to point out which area he lives in and St Bart's is the closest hospital, and I have since questioned the other doctors there without finding him”, the stranger explained. ”Now will you let me continue or do you have any more questions?”

John had a lot of questions. For example how he had managed to learn where this murderer lived, why he would be going to any hospital at all, and what the bloody hell he was doing, trying to solve a murder. But he had a feeling he would get his answers and shook his head.

”Do you know who he is?” he asked. ”The murderer?”

John stared at him in disbelief.

”Excuse me?”

”Oh, right, sorry”, the man apologized. ”Do you need details? He's with all probability American. He would have military background, like you, he would be quiet and not like to talk about his past. He would be single and not very interested in relationships. Oh, and he is dying. Something that doesn't make him very sick, but can take him out any day. He would be indifferent to it though, not very emotional. Does it ring a bell?”

”I really shouldn't-”

”Please do.”

”I don't even have my files on me-”

”You would remember him.”

John did remember him, but he did not feel comfortable giving one of his patients up like that to a man who wasn't even a police. But at the same time, he actually wanted to.

”You know who it is, don't you?” the stranger said.

John sighed.

”Yes”, he said. ”I do know who it is.”

”Very well then”, the other man said. ”Do you happen to know his profession?”

”As a matter of fact, I do.”

It had been a pure coinscidence that he had ever found out about it, because Jefferson Hope was just as the stranger had deduced not a very talkative person. But one day he had came in a bit late, talking about a client that had given him the wrong adress, and John had learned what he did for a living.

”He's a cab driver, is he not?” the stranger asked.

John's jaw dropped.

”How on earth do you know that?”

The stranger smirked.

”Because when he died Enoch Drebber was so drunk that he couldn't possibly have walked from here to where he was found, and as he had no friends in town he couldn't have gotten there in anything but a cab”, he explained. ”Now, we can only assume that in that cab was the murderer, and no man would be dumb enough to take a cab with his victim to the scene of the crime. And as a witness has told us that a cab stopped at Lauriston gardens at the time of the murder and left some 20 minutes later, the murderer must then have been the driver of that cab.”

It seemed so obvious when he said it like that, that John felt stupid for not realizing it himself.

”But how do you know he's dying?” he asked instead.

”All in good time”, the stranger said. ”Now, what is his name?”

Before he could stop himself, John had blurted it out. The stranger smiled contently.

”The food is on me”, he said.

Then he paid at the bar and walked out. John saw him through the window, waiting for an empty cab to pass by and pick him up. He knew he really should be getting back to St Bart's before his lunch ended. But there was something about this man, maybe the way he talked, maybe the adventure he meant, maybe only the fact that John had just started seeing colours and everything was exciting to him. Whatever it was, he left his food only half-eaten and joined him.

”Mind if I join?” he asked.

”Not at all”, the stranger smiled down at him just as a cab pulled up beside them. ”I was hoping for it, actually.”

They got in the car and the driver was ordered to drive to Scotland Yard. John assumed that he would give them the name he had just learned and thought no more of it. Either way, it was exciting, more exciting than anything had ever been after he had returned from Afghanistan.

They stopped outside Scotland Yard and the other man was out in a second.

”Will you wait here?” he asked the driver. "I will only be a minute or two."

John got out too, walked over to the other side of the car and leaned on it. He saw the man he had met just the other day practically run up the stairs like a child with a new toy and smiled to himself.

He opened his mouth and turned to the driver, but in the sudden shock something completely different than he had intended to say escaped his mouth.

”Mr Hope?!” he exclaimed.

The suspected murderer looked back at him, equally as shocked.

”Doctor Watson!” he cried. ”I didn't realize it was you!”

”And I didn't realize it was you!”

He started thinking immidately. What were the chances that  _his_ cab would pick them up? Slim, next to none. It could be a coincidence, sure, but-

”No one ever notices the driver!” his companion cried out as he came running down towards them, now with a tanned, grey-haired man around 50 right behind him. ”Mr Drebber certainly didn't!”

The cab driver stared at him with his mouth open and his face completely stated, but didn't even try to make a run for it.

”Would you please step out of the car, sir?” the man John's new friend had brought with him ordered.

Jefferson Hope did so without hesitation.

”I am detective inspector Lestrade of the Scotland Yard and you, Mr Jefferson Hope, are under arrest for the murder of Mr Enoch Webber”, the grey-haired man explained.

John stood there unable to say anything as his patient was taken away.

”What is it that he has?” the man who had caught him asked. ”Why is he dying?”

”An aneurysm”, John replied.

”Of course, naturally.”

John looked at him.

”How'd you know he would pick us up?” he asked.

”Well, considering the shifts cabbies have”, the stranger began, ”and the fact that he was working the evening of Drebber's murder, then his shift would had just begun at the time when I left that pub. And since the cab station is up the street and we were at the busiest road, he would come driving down it right about then. It was pure luck that no one stopped him before I did though.”

”You need to tell me all about this”, John demanded.

”Shouldn't you be getting back to the hospital?” the stranger teased.

John didn't even bother looking at his watch, he knew his lunch was already over.

”It can wait.”

***

”Well, it was like this”, the stranger told him, as they were seated at a bench inside Scotland Yard. ”Drebber was found dead at Lauriston Gardens with a woman's wedding ring beside him and the name Rachel scrabbled onto the wall with his blood. Now I naturally started thinking about possible motives, but as he was a loner here in the country I couldn't find any. But then I looked into his police records from America and found that he had several times been arrested for domestic violence against his wife. Yes, you guess right, her name was indeed Rachel.

"Now, this Rachel Drebber died over eight years ago. She was murdered, but no one was ever convicted of the crime. The couple lived in a small town in Ohio, so you can imagine how talk went. Everyone must have known that her husband was abusive, so they must also have known that he killed her. This is what must have made him flee the country seven and a half years ago and come here. 

"But would anyone, several years later, fly to England to murder this man and make his wife justice? No, bitterness is a paralytic. Love is a much more vicious motivator. There must have been a lover, and it was probably also why she was murdered. But why not kill him there and then, before he could get a chance to escape? Obviously this lover of hers must have been elsewhere at the time of her death, only to find out when he returned home. Because two years after she had died – note the time difference, it's important – her grave was robbed, of her wedding ring of all things. A witness said a man ran away from the scene. This could be a coincidence, but another six years later her husband is found dead. Where does a man go away for two years, and why does he wait another six to get revenge on the man who ruined his life? Well, in America, enlisted soldiers must do two years of active duty in war and most often six more back in the country. So he must have enlisted after he met her, come back home to find her dead and as soon as he could, he followed the murderer over here to make him pay for it.

"The death sentence, you wonder? Why, that was obvious. He wrote her name on the wall, he wanted to know why this man had been murdered and he wanted people to know that he had done it. It didn't matter to him. But more importantly, he left her ring there. He had opened up her grave to get that ring and he had kept it with him for six years, it was obviously very important and of great value to him. Why then, would he leave it there? If not because it wouldn't be of any use to him anyway, as he was already knocking on heaven's door, so to say? No, this was the final act of a dying man.”

John stared at him in disbelief.

”A little far fetched, is it not?” he said.

”Is not a man under arrest right now?”

”Why yes, but-”

”Then I was successful”, he concluded. ”All these deductions brought me to Jefferson Hope.”

”But it can't all be correct”, John protested. ”You couldn't possibly have guessed everything correctly!”

”Oh, I never guess.”

And with that he left, leaving John alone to try and wrap his head around everything he had just heard. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be! But he made it all sound so simple and obvious, as if the answer was clear as day.

He returned a few minutes later and handed John a paper.

”Here's the written version of his confession”, he said.

_My name is Jefferson Hope. A little over eight years ago I met and fell in love with Rachel Drebber. She was married, but to a cruel man she did not love and promised to divorce him as soon as I had gotten back, as I had just enlisted in the army and could not change my mind._

_I left with the knowledge that she was waiting for me and it was the only thing that kept my spirit up while I was at war, but when I came back for her she was nowhere to be found. I learned that she was dead, and everyone in town were just as certain as me that her husband was responsible. I swore vengeance on him but he had already fled to Europe and I was kept from following by my duty to the country. The only thing I could do was dig up her grave and take her wedding ring, so that she would not be bound to that awful man in the afterlife._

_Just before I was relieved of my duty I was diagnosed with an aneurysm. I knew then that I would have to worry about no consequences and could freely extract revenge on Enoch Drebber. I headed to England the first day I could, and to get to know the city and locate the man I was looking for I took work as a cab driver._

_On the evening of last Thursday I set eyes on him outside a pub on Torquay Terrace and I picked him up. He was drunk as can be and didn't notice that I took him not to his apartment but to an abandoned building at Lauriston Gardens. I helped him into the building, told him why he would die, and stabbed him until I was satisfied and he had taken his last breath._

_I confess to the murder of Enoch Drebber._

Under the machine written text, written with a pen, was; _Your cane is still at Charpentier's and your limp is psychosomatic._

John looked up and found that the man who had written it was gone, and he had been so focused on reading that he hadn't noticed him go. He was awfully disappinted that he hadn't, because this really wasn't over to him. He wanted to get to know this mysterious man, whoever he might be. What he didn't know was that their paths would cross again, in a not so distant future.

What he felt must have showed on his face, because when detective inspector Lestrade stepped into the corridor right beside him he directly took on a smug face and smirked.

”I see you've met Sherlock Holmes.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very simplified version of The Sign Of The Four.

The wedding was held that August in a lovely little church just outside London. Champagne was flowing and dances were danced. John and Mary Watson received many compliments and congratulations. She was beautiful and he was handsome.

Harry didn't approve of her brother's new wife and the bride's side of the church was empty, as she didn't have any family and all her friends were on the other side of an ocean. At one point she spilled some Chardonnay on her gorgeous dress and the ring bearer dropped John's ring during the ceremony. But weddings can't be all merry and happy, can they?

In the end they laughed at it and danced their waltz as if nothing had ever happened. It was a joyous occasion, the day the doctor got his secretary. The cake was delicious and many wonderful speeches were delivered. Mike Stamford was best man and one of the female doctors at St Bart's was a bride's maid. The weather was wonderful, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. The newlyweds were driven away in a white limousine after the party.

It was a perfect day for a perfect couple.

John never did get back to that pub and retrieve his cane.

***

Mary had been looking for a new job since after the wedding. She had said that they shouldn't be working together now that they were married and he had agreed, even though he rather would've spent his entire days with her. She became secretary at a law firm called Small's in November of that year and a young woman named Sarah took her place at the hospital.

His wife seemed content enough with married life, but John started getting restless. He felt like something was wrong, like he was missing out on something. He couldn't explain it, he just wanted something else, anything else. Not that he didn't want Mary, he would always want her, but he had found the cracks beneath her surface and he wasn't pleased with what he'd seen.

She could be odd sometimes, to the point of scary. Her reflexes were unnaturally fast and she could get all dark in her eyes when she got angry. When John had found a wounded bird in the garden of the house they rented together in the suburbs he had given it some water before going to work, to see if it would had regained some strenght and flown away by the time he got back. When he did he found nothing but a small puddle of blood.

”I put it out of it's misery”, Mary said without an ounce of emotion on her face.

But every time he ever doubted her, he looked into her blue eyes and realized why he loved her so much. She was meant to be his and he was meant to be hers, and they brought colours into each other's lives. Every night he laid awake and thought about it, that's what he told himself.

And he never did get that Sherlock Holmes bloke out of his mind. He had told Mary about him and the day they solved that crime together – well, that day Sherlock had solved a crime and John had watched him do it – over and over again. He couldn't stop talking about it, couldn't stop thinking about it. The smallest things would remind him of it, like fish and chips, an old man with a cane, or a cab passing by.

_No one ever notices the driver._

He was so fascinated and intrigued by this Sherlock Holmes who solved crimes for the fun of it that he even appeared in his dreams sometimes, with his dark locks, infinite eyes and prominent cheekbones, talking quickly and making conclusions from everything.

”I swear, for all this that I hear about him you could have a crush on this Holmes boy”, Mary would joke and hit him lightly with her elbow. ”Don't you dare go running off to solve crimes with him!”

_Bitterness is a paralytic. Love is a much more vicious motivator._

One day John found a small article in the paper that stated that convicted murderer Jefferson Hope had passed away in prison.

”Look!” he said and showed it to Mary. ”It's that man I helped catch!”

She didn't bother to look at it, so busy was she with breakfast.

”No offense, John darling”, she said as she buttered her toast. ”But from what I've heard Sherlock Holmes would've caught him all by himself if you hadn't helped.”

John had thought about that too, very often. A man with the mind of Sherlock Holmes could easily have solved that crime, with or without help. He had it practically solved himself and would have gotten Hope's name within hours even if John hadn't given it to him, yet he had come to the hospital, walked into his office and dragged him with him to lunch. Why had he done that? What use could he possibly have had of John?

”Well, he's dead now anyway”, he said and turned the page.

***

One grim January afternoon, a month which John had learned to hate now that he knew that he world could be so much more colorful than that, he had run out of patients and decided to go pick up Mary from the Small's office, as her day would be ending soon too.

He walked slowly through the city and the wet snow. Birds that hadn't left Britain over the winter were chirping in the trees around him and the sun was peeking through the clouds for the first time in what seemed like forever. Here and there someone said hello to him and he smiled and said hello back, and when no one did he hummed to himself on some old song. He was in a jolly mood for whatever reason, and the entire world seemed to be within his reach. He had often felt that way since he had first seen the colors. The world seemed a better place with them in it, or he just took notice of the good things now.

The air was chilly but he was properly dressed. He didn't have a worry in the world.

”Lovely day, isn't it?” he said as he came through the door at the office and found Mary at her usual place at the desk.

”Give me a cheery husband and I'm satisfied”, she said as he leaned over and kissed her. ”Hello there, mister.”

”G'afternoon, mrs Watson”, he grinned.

They pulled apart.

”All set to go?”

”Just a few minutes more and Irene'll be in”, Mary replied.

John didn't mind waiting. If he had waited almost 40 years to find her he could wait a few minutes to bring her home.

Still with a smile on his face he went and sat down among the long-faced people waiting to meet a lawyer. He started looking through a magazine without really reading anything in it and was carelessly humming a little to himself when a breeze went by and someone sat down in the chair next to him.

”Evening, doctor”, a low voice said.

John looked up at the tall man beside him.

”Why, who isn't it unless bloody Sherlock Holmes?” he said.

Sherlock smirked.

”So you know who I am.”

”Not because you told me though.”

”No”, Sherlock repeated. ”Not because I told you.

”Well, what's he doing here?” John asked and put down the magazine, because it didn't interest him at all as much as Holmes did.

”Investigating another case”, he replied.

”But he's still not a police?”

”Nor will he ever be.”

John laughed.

”What is he then?” he asked. ”Because I can vaguely recall solving another one of these crimes with him a few months ago.”

”I'm a consulting detective”, Sherlock replied. ”The only one in the world. People come to me with their troubles and I usually help them.”

”But that's a private detective”, John chimed in. ”And there are quite a lot of those out there.”

”Why, yes”, Sherlock agreed. ”But the police don't consult private detectives, now do they?”

”Not usually, no.”

Sherlock nodded contently.

”But what's this case you're investigating now?” John asked.

Even if he wouldn't be needed he wanted to hear about it, wanted to hear about anything that was more interesting and exciting than his ordinary, boring life with a wife and house out in the suburbs.

”Oh, nothing special really”, Sherlock said with an indifferent voice. ”This fellow named Bartholomew Sholto has been found dead in his room in the apartment he shares with his brother. He appears to have been some sort a drug addict so there could be nothing more to it, except he died of an overdose of Potassium Chloride, and that is no drug one takes for pleasure. But all doors and windows were locked from the inside, so it's as always up to me to prove that the brother did it.”

”The brother?” John cried. ”But why would he have killed him?”

”Money, of course”, Sherlock replied. ”They've been quarrelling quite a bit about who's to inherit what from their recently deceased father. Bartholomew appears to have been the one with the right, but Thaddeus might not have agreed about that.”

”And what are you doing here?”

”Oh, just going to read through the old man's will and confirm my motive”, Sherlock said, as if it was all routine. ”It's supposed to be here.”

At this point Mary came up to them, already dressed in her coat and with her bag on her arm.

”Are you ready to leave, love?” she asked in her soft, sweet voice.

”Mary!” John said, because he had already forgotten that it was her he was there for. ”This is Sherlock Holmes!”

”Oh”, she said. ” _The_ Sherlock Holmes? I though I recognized you.”

Sherlock stared her up and down with a light frown on his face.

”I think I'd better go”, he said and stood up. ”Mr Small is probably waiting for me.”

”You don't have an appointment”, Mary protested.

”He knows me”, Sherlock said, as he walked away from them with long, hurried steps.

”Curious fellow, that one”, Mary said with a giggle.

Her husband looked after said curious fellow with longing in his eyes. He wanted so badly to walk with him, to follow him on another adventure, to be there when he solved yet another case. He wanted so badly to do anything but sit next to Mary one more night and eat one more dinner in complete silence.

”Mary”, he said. ”Would you mind if I waited here for him?”

She looked surprised, perhaps a bit hurt.

”Of course not”, she said. ”Do you think you'll be home for dinner?”

John smiled at the prospect of blood pumping through his veins, the thrill of the chase, just he and Sherlock Holmes against the rest of the world.

”I don't think so.”

***

He stood up the second Sherlock returned and grinned when he saw the surprise he felt over seeing him there.

”Where to?” he asked.

”Pondicherry lodge”, Sherlock replied, a smile slowly forming on his lips.

There's always a cab to catch in central London, and they were on their way within the minute.

”Did you confirm your theory?” John asked as they headed towards their destination.

”Very much so”, Sherlock replied. ”The father left it all for Bartholomew, but he left it all for Thaddeus.”

The apartment building was located in a quiet neighbourhood with well cared for houses and a few children in school uniforms on the street. It didn't look like a place where a man would kill his own brother, but exteriors can misguide you.

The Sholto apartment was at the top floor and Thaddeus greeted them at the door, seemingly unaware that he was Sherlock's prime suspect.

”Thank God you're here!” he yelled with a high voice. ”You need to free me from these horrendous accusations!”

”We'll need to take a look around the place”, the consulting detective said.

”Of course! Take all the time you need.”

Sherlock walked through the messy kitchen and across the crowded lounge and didn't even look towards Thaddeus' bedroom or the bathroom. He had his eyes set on the room where Bartholomew Sholto had ended his days.

”Do you see the roof?” he said, immediately as he and John stepped inside it.

”It's a door to the attic!” John exclaimed.

”Precisely”, Sherlock said. ”I've never seen such an obvious case!”

He headed towards it, pulling it down and revealing a ladder. He pulled that down as well and had climbed up it in no time, while John stood in the room and waited for his return.

”It's their part of the attic!” the detective shouted from above him. ”It's locked from the outside!”

John laughed.

”It's solved then, is it?” he said.

”Quite so”, Sherlock said as he climbed down the ladder again. ”Thaddeus goes up the attic from the other way, climbs down to his brother's room, gives him some Potassium, locks all doors and windows and climbs back. He goes through the attic, comes down the stairs and walks right back into the apartment, and _voilá;_ the money is his.”

At the sudden sound of a gasp coming from the doorway both men turned around and saw the man in question stand there.

”He was a junkie!” he screamed. ”All he would do was to shoot up the money, father never should've given it to him in the first place!”

”Well, whatever you think”, Sherlock said, stepping closer to him with a proud grin on his face. ”I'm turning you in for his murder.”

”I guess you can't run from the law”, Thaddeus found as he leaned against the doorway.

”Oh!” Sherlock Holmes laughed. ”The law you can run from, from me you can not!”

”Very well”, the murderer said, still surprisingly calm and without attempting to escape or make them change their minds. ”But I just boiled us all tea.”

Sherlock looked to John, as if he was actually contemplating the idea of tea with the man he was about to give up to the police.

”We're not having tea!” John shouted.

”I was just checking”, Sherlock muttered.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the late update, but I was carried away by some other fics and other ships. If you want me to continue writing this (that is, if you want to continue reading it) then please please PLEASE say so. I feel as if I'm not writing for anyone at all right now and would really enjoy it if you could let me know that you readers are actually out there. Otherwise I might not finish this.

They settled for dinner at an Italian place where Sherlock knew the owner. His name was Angelo and was kind and service minded but insisted on referring to John as Sherlock's date.

”I'm not his date”, he always said, but it was as if he couldn't hear him.

He was wearing a bloody wedding ring and had forgotten that not a lot of people analyzed everyone the way Sherlock Holmes did.

”The usual”, Sherlock ordered.

”I'll have the same then”, John said.

He did not once think about Mary alone at home, preparing a dinner for one for the first time since she had met him.

”Your leg seems better”, Sherlock noted with a smug smile as he avoided looking directly at John.

”Well”, John played along. ”Turns out it was psychosomatic all along.”

”Oh, really?” the detective said as he looked at him with faked suprise.

”Mm, very much so”, John said as Angelo arrived with their drinks. ” _Thank you_. I'm thinking it's Mary that helped me got over it.”

At this, Sherlock twitched almost unnoticeably and broke eye contact to look out the window.

”You know”, John continued without noticing, ”I see the colours now.”

”Oh”, Sherlock said. ”You know, I never believed in them.”

”Well”, John said, ”they're very real.”

”I know they're real”, Sherlock hissed. ”I said believed, as in did.”

Without thinking further of why he had suddenly turned so hostile, John changed the subject.

”How do you know Angelo?”

”Got him off a murder charge.”

”Naturally.”

”For me it is.”

John thought about how he had only met this man three days in total with a year apart, and he had during those days handed two different men in to the police for different crimes, and realized that it was indeed natural and regular to him. That was his life, and suddenly John realized something that was almost as big as the moment he had first seen the colours; it could be his life too.

He could pack up his bags and leave, he could file for a divorce and quit his job. He didn't have to live the same old routine – the one he had gotten bored off a month after it had started – day after day, he didn't have to be bored out of his mind every bloody day. If he wanted to go he could. He could live the life Sherlock lived, and every day could be like that afternoon had been. He could solve crimes and achieve things on a regular basis if he wanted to. If he only dared to take that leap, if he only dared to take the step, if he could be brave enough to leap into infinity, if he-

”Here you go”, Angelo interrupted his thoughts as he put down their plates in front of them.

”Thank you”, John said.

Sherlock didn't say a word, but gave him a small smile.

He remained silent through the entire meal, even when John occasionally made a forced remark about something in the restaurant. Suddenly they had nothing to say each other, and it wasn't strange at all. Because without a case to solve they had nothing in common, they were too different and lived different lives. There was nothing they could have a casual conversation about. All John could do was say that his food tasted well and all Sherlock could reply was ”good”.

It was first when they had finished that John realized that there was something he had been wondering about ever since they had first had Jefferson Hope arrested and convicted.

”There's one thing I don't understand about the Drebber case”, he said. ”Why did Hope join the army in the first place when he had met Rachel, and why didn't she leave her husband even if her lover wasn't there anymore?”

Sherlock bit his lip and looked out the window as he appeared to think about it.

”I suppose that sometimes people are too afraid to take the step and do what they really want to”, he said after a while. ”Sometimes it's very complicated. Sometimes you might think it's for the best to stay away and forget about it altogether, and sometimes you end up stuck with the wrong person and there's really nothing you can do about it. Maybe they were going to run away, but they waited too long and missed the chance.”

John frowned.

”I still don't get it.”

”Trust me”, said Sherlock. ”Neither do I.”

He waved for Angelo to come with the bill, and John insisted on paying as he was a doctor and one can't really make much money as a consulting detective. Sherlock didn't protest and they were soon out on the pavement, waiting for a cab.

”This was fun”, John said. ”I think I would like to do it again.”

”Really?” Sherlock replied.

”Really.”

Sherlock smirked.

”I suppose it's a little less responsibility to solve people's deaths than to save their lives”, he remarked.

John didn't know if he should be offended, but decided to laugh instead.

”You can be fun, you know”, he said. ”When no one is around, for me you are funny.”

”If that's the case, then you're funny for me too”, the detective said.

He waved at a cab that only passed them by.

”If you wouldn't mind”, John started, suddenly feeling nervous as if he was back in fourth grade asking that cute girl out on a date, ”I could take your adress and we might do this again.”

The taller man by his side suddenly looked at him in surprise.

”I wouldn't mind at all”, he said.

”Put it in my phone”, John told him and handed it to him.

As Sherlock wrote he managed to have a cab drive up next to them and stop.

”Are you coming with?” he said as he opened the door.

”No, I'm walking”, Sherlock replied while handing him the phone back.

John looked down and read the adress. _221B Baker Street._

”Hey, Sherlock”, he said as he looked up in confusion.

The man in question was already several feet away and didn't hear him.

”Sherlock!”

He only raised a hand and didn't stop walking.

John looked back at the phone just to make sure that he hadn't misread anything, only to see that he most certainly hadn't. Because the adress wasn't what had made him call out for Sherlock Holmes, but it was the thing that he had written below it, something that he couldn't wrap his head around.

_Good luck with the little one._

***

John rushed up the frontyard and slammed the door open, already catching his breath. Mary was in the kitchen, placed in front of the sink full of dirty dishes with one hand resting on her stomach. As soon as he saw that scene all the doubt he had felt was gone.

”Are you pregnant?” he asked loudly, grabbing the closest chair as he started feeling dizzy and overwhelmed.

She opened her mouth and looked down at the hand she had placed there subconsciously.

” _Are you pregnant_?” her husband repeated.

She looked back up at him, completely out of words.

”I was going to tell you-” she started.

”Am I going to be a father?” John interrupted.

Her eyes watered slightly and a smile formed on her lips, then she nodded.

John turned around, it was too much for him. Did he want a baby? Yes, he did, of course he did, don't everyone? He wanted a little version of himself, someone he would look out for and protect for the rest of his life, someone that would know every side of him and love him anyway. But in that moment, he didn't. Not after he had played with that thought at dinner, not when he had considered the possibility. Was a child really what he wanted? Wasn't it that other thing that he wanted, that other life?

”I was going to tell you”, Mary said. ”I just wanted to find a good moment.”

He turned to look at her, expecting to feel differently about her, to some how be aware of the fact that she was carrying his child inside her. He felt nothing, not even when she looked at him with those expectant eyes and smiled an unsure smile.

”Aren't you happy?” she asked.

_I don't know”,_ he thought.  _I really don't know._

But he knew what he was supposed to say, what he had to say.

”Of course I am”, he said.

She stepped up to him and he embraced her. She laughed with her head at his shoulder as he stared at the wall with fear in his eyes.

”We're going to have a baby”, she said.

John stroked her on the back.

_No_ , he realized.  _This isn't what I want._

***

He told Mary he wanted to get to the hospital early. He told the cab driver to drive to Baker Street. He stared out the window, saw buildings pass by, couples and people without company, with or without children. It looked dreadfully boring, and he imagined himself like that. With a tiny little person in a stroller, staring out into the distance and wishing that he had taken the chance he had turned down.

A short older woman opened the door marked 221B.

”I'm John Watson”, he said. ”I'm here to see Mr Holmes.”

”Oh”, she said and broke out into a huge smile. ”So you're the famous doctor!”

He blinked.

”You know who I am?”

”Of course!” the woman said. ”He talks about you constantly!”

John was instructed to go up the stairs and did so. Still in a daze he knocked on a door and a familiar voice told him to come in. He stepped directly into a lounge, that apart from a smaller couch, a table and a chair was overcrowded with all sorts of things.

Sherlock Holmes was laying on that couch, dressed in a blue robe rather than the coat John was familiar with. At the sight of the doctor the detective flew up, but stayed by the couch instead of walking up to greet him.

”John-” he exclaimed.

”How did you know?” the man in question demanded.

He too stayed put at his place by the door.

”Simple really”, Sherlock said, because for him apparently everything was simple. ”Apart from a smaller weight gain and slightly enlarged breasts-”

”Did you look at my wife's breasts?!”

Confused by the sudden interruption, Sherlock found himself at loss of words and gaped.

”Well, I looked at every part of her, really-” he tried, without knowing that it was all in vain and that it only made things worse.

”Oh, you did?” John laughed. ”Really?”

”I'm not interested in _your wife_ ”, Sherlock hissed.

For a short time both men stood quietly and stared at each other. John wasn't mad at him because he had looked at his wife, nor because he had revealed something she should've gotten the chance to do herself. He was mad at him because he had just ruined everything, because he had just made what had been very possible the day before completely impossible for the rest of eternity. It was his own fault, really, but he was still mad at Sherlock, because Sherlock had crushed his dreams before he had even dared to dream them.

”What now?” he asked, as much to himself as to Sherlock.

The latter shrugged his shoulders.

”There's not much you can do, is there?” he replied. ”And even if there was, why would you do it?”

John bit his lip.

”No”, he said. ”Of course not.”

He looked around the room, noticed but thought no further of everything in there. Least of all a small painting that was still drying off on its stand. It was a simple landscape motive, only grass and a blue sky. It was tiny and unsignificant and nothing special at all, but it would had changed so much if he had only given it a second glance.

Sherlock cleared his throat and John looked back at him.

”How about doing it again?” he said, even though he already knew the answer.

”That won't happen”, the taller man with the hypnotizing blue eyes confirmed.

John was going to be a father now, his whole life would change again, of course there would be no time to chase after criminals in dark alley ways or wait for the cab with that particular shady driver. Of course it wouldn't happen, and he knew it.

”Naturally”, he said.

He felt down, he felt disappinted, he didn't know what he felt. Nothing ever went according to plan, and he should had know that by now. But he was still just as disappointed, still felt like he had lost something, but he hadn't really had it in the first place.

Sherlock smiled a weak smile towards him.

”Go home”, he said. ”Be with your wife.”

And John did.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I better give the people what they want, and apparently what the people want is to read this.  
> But I would appreciate if you would keep putting your thoughts and feelings in comments, I don't bite. Just so I know if you're still on board with all this.

_John was crouching in the back of an ambulance car travelling down a bumpy road. He held tight on the handle on the roof and had his head between his legs. He was going to throw up, he knew it. If they weren't there yet, he would throw up. Then all he could do was hope these wounded soldiers weren't conscious enough to notice it._

_Amir was singing in the front seat. John had given up on telling him to stop doing it around the same time he had given up on trying to get him to drive slower. Amir understood English, when he wanted to._

_A sudden turn almost had him slide down on the floor. Deep breaths, deep breaths and he wouldn't lose his breakfast. But it was easier said than done, out in the Afghan desert._

_He didn't know how badly injured the soldiers he was sent out to take back to the hospital were. They could be pretty okay already, or they could be close to dying and there wasn't anything he would be able to do to help them. He hated when that happened, when he had to see their lives end and hear them take their last breath, without being able to do anything. He would never get used to it._

_He didn't notice it when Amir first stopped singing. He directly felt the change in the atmosphere, but he couldn't tell what was different. Not until the car stopped. But not even then did he think any further of it or get worried. John Watson was an army doctor, but he hadn't been through so many awful things. He didn't know what that shiver in his bones or the cold in his chest meant._

_He heard his driver open the door and get out. Amir would usually come back and open the back doors while he prepared stretcher, but the doors didn't open this time, so John got up and opened them himself._

_The sight hit him as soon as he had done it. Masked rebels with rifles and machineguns resting on their shoulders were stood right before him. Amir was on his knees on the ground and someone had a gunpipe at his neck._

_John froze. He forgot all about his training and had no idea what to do. He was completely certain that this were his last minutes on earth, that he was going to die._

The colours, _he thought._ I never saw the colours.

_He had lived in black and white and he would die in black and white. He would never know what the fuss was all about, he would never know the beauty of colours. He would die right there and then, all alone in the desert, shot like a dog._

_It was as if he moved in slow motion. They shouted something at him that he didn't understand, and he got out of the car without making a noise. Someone hit him with a rifle and he got down on his knees. He looked to Amir on his side. He was young and had his whole life ahead of him. Tears were streaming down his face. He wouldn't see the colours either._

_He looked down at the ground and closed his eyes when the shot rang out. The man beside him fell down as a lifeless corpse and stared up at the sky with dead eyes. Blood ran along the ground beneath him. How old had Amir been, 24, 25? Too young either way._

_John closed his eyes and bit his lip, preparing for the shot that would end it all. He felt the hard ground against his knees, blood was making his trousers wet and the wind was blowing in his face. This was it, this was the end. There would be nothing more after this, nothing would ever happen again. He heard a clicking noise, felt a single tear roll down his cheek, and-_

”John”, he heard a panicked voice beside him say.

He was awake again, very much alive and in Britain, not in Afghanistan. He had Mary beside him and not Amir's dead body, he was in a warm, soft bed and not on his knees on the ground in the middle of the desert. He was fine, he didn't have a gun pointed at him, _he was fine._

”John!” his wife yelled. ”My water just broke!”

He was up on his feet in an instant, dressing in a military fashion and without once panicking. He had been in a bloody war, he could get his wife to the hospital without breaking down over it. He helped her put on clothes, as she panted and supported herself on him.

 _Get off me,_ he wanted to tell her. _You're heavy, get off me._

But he didn't say a word, because she was his pregnant wife and she was in labour and a few hours later she would give him a daughter. Then things would be alright again, then he wouldn't be so bored anymore. Then he could finally stop thinking about Sherlock Holmes and his silly crimes.

”Are you alright?” he asked.

”Do I look alright?!” she cried.

She wanted to brush her hair before they went, but he pulled her with him to the car. He wasn't going to deliver that child on his own, no, he was taking her to a hospital even if she thought she looked awful.

”Do you have the bag?” she asked.

He didn't have the bag, but it wasn't because he was panicking but because she was stressing him. He ran into get it from where he'd put it on the kitchen table. And there he stopped.

He had it over his shoulder and looked at the kitchen and it didn't feel real. It didn't feel like home. For so long had he watched Mary cook in it, so many times had he boiled tea water on that stove, so many nights had they spent sitting at that table. But it didn't feel like home.

 _Why doesn't it feel like home?_ he thought. _This is home. Why doesn't it feel like home?_

He heard Mary scream his name from the car, and he ran out to her. Because how does home really feel? There's no definition of home, there's no way to tell where you belong. That house was lovely and had wonderful colours, and it was home. Whether he liked it or not.

It was still dark outside, not many cars passed by them. He drove under the speed limit, had no rush. Even as she screamed beside him.

”How far apart are the contraptions?” he asked her in his military voice.

He didn't think it a big thing, for some reason. Saw it only as routine, not something life changing and earth shattering. They were just driving to the hospital, and she would give birth and they would drive home as parents. He had been prepared for that for months, so he never had a big moment of revelation as they sat in that car.

He just wanted her to stop screaming, because he couldn't concentrate when she was that loud. But he couldn't ask her to stop, he knew he wasn't supposed to. So he only bit down hard and drove.

***

John was a doctor, but he wasn't worried. He wasn't worried when Mary stopped screaming entirely, when her grip around his arm loosened or her head started rolling at her shoulders and her eyelids started to close. He just stood by her side and held the bag, and wondered when the right time would be to put it down. It was heavy, but he didn't know when he was supposed to walk across the room and put it down in a chair. It never seemed appropiate.

He wasn't worried when the doctor started getting stressed and screamed at the nurses. He wasn't worried when he shoved him out the door and told him that they needed to do a caesarean section. He didn't ask how long it would take or if they would both be alright, he didn't even wonder if his child or wife would survive. He just said okay, and then he asked which way the café was.

John roamed the long halls and corridors with a coffee in his hand and the bag still on his shoulder. He looked at the babies through a window and smiled at the nurse taking care of them when she waved politely at him. He ate pretty decent eggs in the restaurant and read a magazine about male fashion with Robert Downey Jr on the cover without actually making sense of the words. He wasn't that interested in fashion. He bought a second coffee and walked around some more, like an aggitated, restless ghost without anywhere to go.

He wished it would be over soon. Not because he was worried about his wife and not because he wanted to meet his first child, but because he was tired and he wanted to go back to the house and sleep a few hours. Because he was bored and all the sick and wounded people depressed him and he didn't want to be near them. Because the coffee didn't even taste that good. He wondered if Mary would be very angry if she woke up and he had gone home. He hadn't read any books about this, he didn't know what he was supposed to do or not.

But he knew he was supposed to feel something. He _knew_ he was supposed to be happy over becoming a faher and excited over finally having a child and that he should be bursting with anticipation and not be able to wait another second. He _knew_ he was supposed to be really worried about Mary on the operating table and fear that she would die and what on earth he would do then. He knew it, but he didn't.

 _Why aren't I?_ he wondered as he splashed cold water on his face inside a restroom in a half hearted attempt to stay awake.

He knew this was supposed to be the biggest day of his life, but somehow he didn't feel it. For some reason he didn't really feel anything but tired and bored and irritated.

”Mr Watson?” John looked up.

”It's doctor Watson.”

If he knew that doctor's name he would've called him mister and made him know what that felt like, but he had forgotten it.

”She's just out of surgery”, the doctor said. ”It was touch and go for a while, but she pulled through. She's still asleep though.”

John wanted to be angry that they hadn't told him that it was serious, that they hadn't told him that his wife could've died and he could've become a widow with a child. He wanted to be, but he wasn't.

”Baby's doing alright as well”, the doctor continued. ”It's a girl.”

 _It's a girl_ , John repeated in his head, hoping that it would mean something more the second time. It didn't. Maybe he just needed some time to take it all in and realize that it was real. Maybe he just needed some sleep.

”Do you want to see her?”

John was comfortable in his chair and he really didn't feel like doing any more walking with that bag on his shoulder after getting so little sleep, but he didn't think no would be a sufficient or appropiate answer in that situation. He nodded and followed the doctor. He still couldn't remember his name.

”Have you thought about any names?” he asked as they walked.

They had, hadn't they? Of course they had. Maybe they had even settled on something. John couldn't remember. He probably hadn't been listening at all.

”Not really”, he said.

He looked at her through the glass and tried to think of a name. But she didn't look like a Susan, Jane or Evelyn. She didn't look like anything, she looked like a baby. She didn't even look like his baby, like his daughter. She looked just like all the other babies. Her forehead was a little big, mind. But there was nothing special about her apart from that. Was there supposed to be? John wondered if he could ask the doctor that, if he was supposed to see something or feel something. If she was supposed to be more than just another baby, if he was supposed to love her unconditionally now even though he had never met her and didn't know her at all. Maybe he wouldn't even like her. He decided that he couldn't ask the doctor that, not after he had called him Mr Watson.

He also decided that he couldn't ask him if it was normal to hallucinate when your wife is having a c-section. Because when he had sat at the café, just before the doctor came to get him, he had been certain he had seen someone. He had been certain he had seen a man with brown, curly hair and a dark, long coat turn around the corner. And before the doctor had called him Mr Watson he was going to stand up, leave the bag and run after him, and never come back.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Amanda Watson was a year old. She could sit up without support, she could crawl, she could stand up and take a few waddling steps, she could make incoherent noises and she could laugh for five minutes straight at things that weren't even funny. When she was in the mood, that is. Because she could also become so furious that her entire face turned red, and she could scream loud enough to wake up the entire neighbourhood if she felt like it.

What she could not do, was keep her father happy. She could not make him smile a genuine smile, she could not make him love her, she could not make him dream about her. Not that it is the child's responsibility to do all that, but it is something most tend to do anyway.

John Watson was an exception. He didn't dislike his daughter, because who can dislike a baby? He thought she was very cute and when she was happy he was too. If he ever had to, he would probably die for her. If he had that option, that is. Then he probably would. But he would die before any child, and that was the problem. To him Amanda was like any other child. He still waited for that connection, that adoration, that love, that was bound to come one day. But it never did. She wasn't anything special, nothing special at all. Just another baby, a baby that screamed and pooped and laughed. One that admittedly lived in his home and had been taken out of his wife's uterus, but that was everything that separated her from the babies of friends or strangers on the street. Sometimes John looked at her, just looked at her, and waited for everything to change, for the penny to drop. She just gurgled and he smiled at her. The penny didn't drop, nothing ever changed.

He had expected everything to change, he had expected everything to get better when she was born. But it never did. He was still as bored as he had been before. Every day was monotone and horrible, and he stared out the window and looked at all the people and wondered how they did it. They didn't look bored, not like him. He was restless and he could never decide if he wanted to run or stand up and scream out into nothing and never stop. Everything was the same, everything was boring. He wanted to do something, anything, _anything._ He was so bored, and it never changed.

It took him months to stop looking through the papers, looking for his name. He never saw it. He saw Lestrade's every once in a while and wondered if Sherlock had helped him with that case. He wondered how it had happened, he tried to imagine how he had solved the crime. But he never saw as much as a mention of Sherlock Holmes, and soon enough Greg Lestrade couldn't be found either. And eventually John stopped. He stopped searching the papers, he stopped hoping that he would find him there, because he never did. He had never thought himself to be the type to give up easily, but then again, he had never thought himself to be the type to obsess over a consulting detective he had met a handful of times, not more than he had thought that he would dream about his cheekbones at night.

Maybe that meant that if things doesn't change then at least people do. Maybe that would put his mind at ease at one point. But Mary hadn't changed. She was just as impeccably perfect as she had been when he had first set eyes on her behind the reception desk and the world had exploded in front of him. She still bored the hell out of him with her talk about playdates and a possible sibling to Amanda. (And John didn't want a sibling for Amanda. The night she was born had been one of the most boring in his life and he didn't want to repeat it again. He didn't think Mary would agree to let him stay home while she gave birth either, so that was out of question.) He tried to dodge her and stay at work for as long as possible every day, but it didn't always work.

The best way for him to dodge her and at the same time relieve the worst boredom if only temporarily, would be to take the tube to Baker Street. He almost did too, several times. But he always stopped himself in the last minute. Because he had a feeling that if he did go there, if he did try it, then he wouldn't be able to get enough. Then he would never be able to go back to his normal boring life again, then he would never come back. And as much as he didn't want to go back, he didn't want to abandon his family either. Because boring or not, that was what Mary and Amanda was for him. He had made a commitment, he had signed up for that for life. He couldn't leave them like that, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did. He would have nightmares about that too, he knew it.

He had a lot of nightmares at this point. They had been gone for months after he had met Mary and they had gotten married, but they had come back when she was pregnant. Slowly, first only glimpses and occasional screams, but gradually they had gotten longer and more detailed. They were always about the war, about people dying and bombs and gunshots and everything else. They were horrid, gruesome, violent and bloody, but that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that they were all in black and white. The colours hadn't been there yet, and in the dreams they were gone. That made him panic more than anything else, that was the worst. He couldn't see any colours at all, but he could remember them. He knew they were out there and he knew how they looked, but he couldn't see them. He was aware of them, but they weren't there. He had had the colours and then he had lost them, and that was worse than everything.

***

They met again on the street by chance. Well, chance and chance. How many times is it chance? How many times can you call it chance before you need to face that it's something else? That, maybe, it's faith? John Watson didn't really believe in faith, but he hadn't believed in the colours either, and yet when he saw him he could see that Sherlock Holmes had dark brown hair and a dark blue coat.  
”Sherlock?” he called out through the crowd.

He didn't speak loudly and he shouldn't have heard him, but he still turned around. They stared at each other as people passed them by. John couldn't say a word.

_What is happening?_ he thought.  _What is happening?_

It felt like the world was still and the eath didn't spin, it felt like all the noise was muffled, everything except Sherlock was blurry and all the colours were suddenly clearer. They were clearer, so much clearer, so much more beautiful. They looked like they had done the first time he saw them, before they had gotten normal and everyday. They looked like they were still extraordinary, like they were still miracles. John forgot to breathe for a few seconds there.

Sherlock opened his mouth, but it took a while before any sounds escaped it.

”John”, he said eventually.

His voice seemed deeper, more hoarse and almost threatened to break. John suddenly realized that it wasn't just his voice that was different. He didn't look at all like he had done the last time they met, when he had been dashingly handsome with high cheekbones, clear skin, healthy hair and lively eyes. He looked tired, almost drained. His skin had a yellowish tone to it, his face was a bit greasy and his hair even more, it was worn and torn and looked like he hadn't washed it in ages. He was thinner too, on the brink of alarmingly skinny. His cheeks were slumped and his skull was prominent. His eyes were watered and red and almost seemed dead, almost seemed to not see anything. He looked like he had gone through hell, he looked like he had lived for hundreds of years and was done.

”What the hell happened to you?” John asked.

Sherlock smiled lightly and chuckled but sounded more like he coughed or cleared his throat.

”Are you sick?”

Sherlock still smiled, but it was small and strained and there was no joy in his eyes, only sorrow.

”In a way”, he replied.

He sounded done as well, like he was just finished, like he had given up. He put both hands in his pockets and once again it strook John how different he was. When he had met him he had been vibrant, excited, confident and full of life. He had been strutting, waving his arms and signing with his hands. Now, he was still. He didn't move at all except for when he tried to smile or his face twitched. His back had been straight but was now crooked, and he looked smaller. He looked like a little boy more than a grown man, like a lost little boy without any idea where to go next. John just wanted to wrap his arms around him and guide him and make everything okay, but he didn't know how. He didn't know. He just didn't know.

”Are you on a case?” he asked instead.

”No”, Sherlock said. ”I haven't had any cases in a while.”

John thought that was weird. What else did he do, if he didn't have cases? He couldn't imagine Sherlock Holmes as anything but a consulting detective, couldn't believe that he would be pleased doing anything else. If John could have that life and those cases, then he would never stop, he would never be pleased with something else, everything would be inferior. He couldn't understand why he would stop taking cases, because he was so good at it too. Unless...

John shuddered. Because what if he hadn't given it up willingly? What if he had been forced to stop?

”Why?” he asked, because he needed to know. He couldn't take not knowing anymore, he needed to know exactly why Sherlock wasn't doing what he usually did.

For a moment the other man was silent and completely still. He didn't make any movements – John could swear he didn't even blink – and he didn't show any facial expressions. John thought he hadn't heard him at all, until he finally spoke.

”I've been away”, he said.

That wasn't enough for John.

”Where?” he asked. ”A hospital?”

Sherlock breathed out.

”Sort of”, he mumbled, and lowered his eyes.

John looked down too, and he noticed how Sherlock's hands were shaking even through the pockets. He thought about how bad he looked and how his face twitched. _Sort of_ , he had said. He looked down at the ground like he was ashamed. John took a few seconds, then it suddenly hit him.

”Jesus”, he exclaimed, before he had thought it through, before he had realized that he shouldn't have.

Sherlock immediately tensed up entirely and John could see how he closed every possibility of further conversation.

”I-I should go”, he stuttered under his breath.

He refused to look up at him as he hurried away, and John couldn't think fast enough to say anything to him.

He looked as the detective disappeared into the crowd and tried to make sense of it, tried to understand what it meant. It was obvious now, but he didn't know what to do with it.

_Rehab,_ he thought.  _Sherlock Holmes has been to rehab._

He never would have guessed that he was a junkie. No, not him. Not Sherlock Holmes. He had been so perfect, so bloody _perfect._ He hadn't had any flaws or weaknesses, none at all. But then he was a drug addict. Then he didn't wash his hair for weeks and his fingers shook. Then he probably had an arm full of holes after a syringe.

It was hard for John to think of him like that, high and passed out in a corner, both blind and deaf to the outside world. It was even harder to imagine him at rehab, dressed all in white and dragging his slipper-clad feet behind him through white and neutral corridors. It was impossible to see him on a therapist's couch, pouring his heart out and saying things John couldn't even fathom.

To him that wasn't Sherlock Holmes. To him Sherlock Holmes was strong and confident and caught the bad guys and saved the day. To him Sherlock Holmes' entire life was a giant adventure and he did more good for the world every week than John had done in his entire life. To him Sherlock Holmes was anything but weak, tired and addicted to drugs. But whether he liked it or not, that was Sherlock Holmes. The real one, the one he had just met. Without the cases and the deductions and the smartass comments he wasn't a consulting detective. He was just a lonely scared little boy without anywhere to go or anywhere to turn to, lost in life and desperately in need of an anchar. Because without it he would drift off to sea and no one would ever see him again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Keep on commenting if you want me to continue, because I'm honestly not all into this story and I'm only writing it for you. That's not a warning or anything, I just want to know if you really like where it's going and what's happening. Maybe even suggest? Please do, I'm open to everything!


	7. Chapter 7

John didn't have a plan. He didn't plan to call in sick, and he never meant to make his way to Baker Street. It was weird, because it just sort of happened. He didn't plan to do any of that, he just did.

He hadn't slept a wink. He had been tired, close to exhausted, but he hadn't been able to stop thinking about Sherlock. He hadn't been able to get the image of his face out of his head or stop hearing his weak voice.

_I've been away._

He had to do it. He had to go. He had to save him, or at least try. Try until his fingers bled and there was nothing left to do if it got that far. He _had to._

He stopped outside of 221B and stared at the door. He had to, but he knew that if he did there was no going back. There would be no more regular, boring evening dinners, there would be no diaper changes. Everything would change. He wouldn't be able to go back. Mary wouldn't understand it, but she would have to accept it. Because he had to do it, whatever it meant.

His hand was shaking by the time he had gathered enough strength to reach forward and press the button for the doorbell. He could hear it ring inside, but no one came to the door.

John stood there. He didn't have a plan. He had really thought that Sherlock would open, he had been certain that he would get further than to the goddamn door. Instead he was left out on the street looking like a complete doofus. He had called in sick. He hissed. But he pressed the button again, just in case. Because there was really nothing else to do.

Suddenly he heard banging inside, someone rushing down the stairs. The door was unlocked and flung open, almost in his face. He had to take a step back and almost fell backwards.

”Christ!” he yelled.

Sherlock looked like a different person. He had washed his hair and he was dressed in a black suit. He appeared to be vibrant and full of life again. He was absolutely fine. John couldn't help but feel a little angry. There he was, trying to save him. He had called in sick from work and he never did that. To save him, when he didn't even need saving.

”I'm so sorry!” Sherlock exclaimed. ”I was expecting a client, I- would you like to come upstairs?”

That was what he needed. Not John. A client, a case. Not John. That would save him. Not John.

But it wasn't about saving Sherlock anymore. It wasn't about that, maybe it had never been. Maybe it had been just a little about it, maybe not at all. Because it was about John. He wanted to save himself. Sherlock didn't need him, he could see that, but he needed him. He needed the cases and the criminals, the thrill, the blood pumping through his veins. Maybe it had been about that all along. But he wanted to come upstairs.

”Sure”, he said.

He was actually being selfish. He actually didn't care.

He followed Sherlock up the stairs. It was as if he was trying to walk slower than he wanted to, as if he actually wanted to take two steps at a time but tried his hardest to hold back so he wouldn't run away from John. But if he had been alone or if it had been anyone else, he would have rushed up those stairs, taken it all in a big giant leap and be done with it.

Just as he stopped outside the door to his flat and signed for John to go in first, the doorbell rang again. For a second Sherlock looked confused, almost close to panic, so unprepared was he and so clueless as to what he should do. But then collected himself, told John that he wouldn't be long and practically jumped down the stairs like a child excited for Christmas.

_Client,_ John thought.  _That's what he needs._

He went inside, and for the first time he actually looked at the flat. It was crowded, but not because it was too small but because it was filled with stuff. Not normal stuff normal people had in their normal apartments, but John hadn't expected that either. He wasn't surprised over all the rubbish there was. A robe thrown over the armrest on the couch, too many pillows in a chair that looked otherwise comfortable, a skull – which John thought might very well be real, knowing Sherlock Holmes – over the fireplace, a violin on top of all the paper and documents on the coffee table, a sword on the wall, a letter opener and an actual pipe. John wanted to ask him if he actually smoked it, because it didn't look like it was for decoration. Nothing looked like it was for decoration, not even the half-finished painting in a corner. John would never had guessed that Sherlock painted, but it was quite nice. It was a tree in the middle of a glade or meadow. That seemed like a very boring and surprising motive for a man like Sherlock, maybe that's why he had never finished it. John couldn't see any paint or paintbrushes anywhere either. What he could see was a jar containing what appeared to be eyes. Not that it shocked him.

Footsteps were coming back up the stairs, Sherlock's long and fast ones followed by some that were slow and quiet, almost dragging across the floor and only lifting when absolutely necessary. They belonged to a young woman, early to mid twenties, it was hard to tell. She wasn't pretty. Her hair was greasy and thin and of a boring colour, like someone in the sky hadn't managed to decide whether to make it blonde or brown. She had a pale complexion, sharp cheek, pointy nose, thin lips and an overbite. Her eyes were grey, small and pointed downwards. And then there was the way she moved, like a timid, grey mouse, her hands clutched together and her steps small and quiet. She had poor posture too, and a strange look on her face. Her entire being looked like she would much rather sink into the ground or blend in with the wall than be noticed or heard.

”Please, sit”, Sherlock said and signed towards a kitchen chair he had placed by the coffee table, probably for that very occasion and purpose.

He threw some of the pillows from the other chair into the kitchen and John sat down in it, while he himself positioned himself in the couch. Seconds earlier he had been all over the place, shaking with excitement and almost bursting of anticipation. But now he slumped together, placed one leg carelessly over the other and looked bored. John thought it odd, but then that was the case with a lot of things that had to do with Sherlock.

”So”, the detective said. ”Tell us the story. From the beginning.”

_No introductions here,_ John thought.

The young woman seemed to think the same thing, because she looked confused at him and squeezed her hands together even harder.

”Well”, she started, and her voice was as weak and insignificant as the rest of her but she didn't look down at the ground but held eye contact with Sherlock. ”It all started a few months ago, when I met this guy. I'm at the hospital quite a lot, I have diagnoses.”

She twisted in her chair and blushed a bit.

”So I know a lot of people there”, she continued. ”And one of them, she introduced me to a friend of hers. Friend or relative- I can't remember. But he was handsome, and he laughed at my jokes. He seemed interested, and not a lot of men are interested in me. Well, not in that way at least.”

She laughed awkwardly, and John smiled so she wouldn't feel bad.

”Not going into details”, she said. ”But we spent a lot of time together. Went on dates, stuff like that. We had- we had fun. He made me happy, I really liked him.”

”How about colours?” Sherlock suddenly interrupted. ”Did you see the colours?”

”No?” the woman said. ”I don't- I've heard people say they don't always happen, or not always direct. If-”

”But no colours?” Sherlock asked again.

”No”, she replied.

”Go on then”, he said.

She took a deep breath.

”Then he disappeared”, she said. ”He didn't say anything, didn't leave anything, nothing. He was just gone. His phone had been disconnected, his lease had been terminated. He was just gone.”

John didn't want to have to break it to her that she had been dumped. She didn't look like she had had many boyfriends and she talked about this guy as if he was the most important thing in her life, but she just didn't see the facts. He had left her. And John couldn't blame him, because he would had gone mad within a week with that woman.

”No trace at all?” Sherlock asked.

He started looking interested again, leaning forward slightly and putting a hand under his cheek.

”None”, the woman said. ”I've- I've checked death notices. He's not there either.”

”The picture?”

She reached into a pocket of the expensive looking coat she hadn't taken off and took out a picture that she laid down on the coffee table in front of her. The man on it was not what John had expected. He was closer to them than her in age, and he was  _handsome._ Blond and blue eyed with a striking smile. He looked fit and all features worked well with each other, not at all like hers. 

”That's him”, she said and smiled lightly. ”Sebastian Moran.”

Sherlock stared at his face, bent forward and with his cheek in his hands. He didn't say a word for a long time, so John eventually felt forced to say something, anything.

”Do you think there is any chance he's gone-” he tried to say it as gently as possible, ”away by his own accord?”

She shook her head frantically.

”Never!” she exclaimed. ”He would say, he would tell me!”

”Did you pay something for him?” John suggested. ”Or did he take something before he went?”

”No!” she protested. ”Nothing at all.”

”I'm keeping this”, Sherlock said and simply took the picture before its owner could protest. ”I think that's all I need.”

He stood up and reached out his hand. She looked around confused, but got up too and shook it. 

”So you're taking my case?” she asked.

”I already have”, he replied.

John got up and shook her hand as well, and then she walked out the door and down the stairs by herself. Sherlock was done with being polite and acting as a host.

”Why are we taking her case?” John asked, once he had heard the front door slam and knew that she was out on the street and couldn't possibly hear it. ”He's obviously left her, he's not disappeared or anything.”

For a few seconds, Sherlock just stared at him. John couldn't read him at all, he just stared at him.

”We”, he said quietly, almost too quietly for John to hear.

”What?” he asked and furrowed a brow.

”We?” Sherlock said and cleared his throat. ”You said we.”

John tried to smile, but he got scared. Scared that Sherlock wouldn't let him help, that he wouldn't want him on the case. That he would have to get back to Mary and Amanda and live the rest of his life the exactly same way, boring and predictable.

”I suppose I did”, he said.

Then Sherlock smiled. He didn't smirk, he actually smiled. Not a large one, but one that was a lot more sincere and honest than anyone John had ever seen him smile before.

”Does this mean that you're in?” he asked.

”If you allow it”, John replied, and he couldn't help but feel a smile of his own starting to grow.

”There's more to the story”, Sherlock suddenly said. ”That woman we just met, her name is Abigail Windsor.”

John had to take a moment to think out a reply after the sudden change of conversation, but quickly found that he recognized the name.

”As in, Alastair Windsor?”

”Exactly!”

”Banker of sorts?”

”Close”, Sherlock said. ”He owns a bank.”

A light bulb lit up in John's head.

”She's rich”, he stated. ”But she never paid for anything for him, and he didn't steal anything.”

”That's because he didn't have to.”

Suddenly he understood.

”It hasn't been robbed, has it?” he asked.

_A bank robbery!_ he thought.

That was even more exciting than a murder, and not many things were.

”Not yet”, Sherlock said with a smirk. ”But I think it might be soon.”

John was in. He was so in.

***

Mary peeled potatoes. She was good at it, he could give her that. She was fast at peeling potatoes, but it was still  _peeling potatoes._ It was still boring. And what he did was even more boring. He stirred the sauce. That was so boring that he wanted to stick his head in it and cook himself alive.

”Something happened today”, he said.

He didn't want to tell her. He didn't know why, but he really didn't want to. Still he had to, he knew he did. She was his wife so she had to know. He couldn't call in sick every day, he would have to be with Sherlock after work and stay out late. So he really didn't have an option.

”Oh?” she said.

She didn't sound interested at all. She was good at faking interest, but he knew her now.

He took a deep breath. He had to do it.

”I met Sherlock Holmes”, he said.

She stopped for a second, stared straight ahead of her and blinked twice.

”Really?” she said.

”Yeah”, John said. ”I'm-”

Was it even that bad? He didn't feel like it was, so he had no idea why he felt that it was so horrible to tell her. Did he expect her to be angry or lash out? Did he expect her to suddenly decide to peel off his skin instead? He didn't. He didn't expect anything, but the words wouldn't come to him.

”I'm going to help him with another case”, he said.

She kept peeling the potatoes. There was something strange about her, something that made him think that he should expect  _something_ after all.

”Why?” she asked.

”I dunno”, he said. ”I suppose I could be helpful.”

”No offence, John”, she said. ”But you're a doctor. What could you be helpful for?”

He sighed.  _That's_ what he should have expected.

”I dunno”, he said again. ”I'm just gonna help him, that's all.”

”Is that so wise?” she asked. ”You've got work, we've got Amanda.”  
_I know,_ he thought. _And both those things makes me want to kill myself._

”I won't be out all day”, he sneered. ”I'll just lend him a hand from time to time.”

He planned on doing a lot more than that, he wanted to do a lot more than that, he needed to do a lot more than that. But if that's what he had to say, then he would say it.

”Alright then”, she said. ”Can I at least know what it's about?”

That felt even worse to tell her, and he didn't have to. He wouldn't. He wouldn't say anything. He didn't know why, but he could definitely not say a word.

”No”, he said, and tried a smile to make it into a joke and not so serious. ”It's a secret.”

Amanda started crying in the room on the other side of the wall. For the first time ever, John was grateful for her.

”I'll get her”, he said.

He left the sauce to care for itself and ran off the fastest he could, before she could protest any further. He hoped that when he got back she would have forgotten all about it and that they would never have to talk about it again, and the problem would be solved.

As he left the room Mary stopped peeling and stared at him. There was something dark in her eyes and her grip around the peeler tightened.

But he didn't notice, because he held his daughter and looked into her eyes. For the first time, he felt something. Within those blue eyes there was something. He smiled.

 


	8. Chapter 8

The only reason John went home after work was that Sherlock didn't expect him yet and he didn't want to seem clingy or eager. But he would much rather had been there than at his own place, and it almost physically hurt him to open the door.

”Hello?” he shouted.

No one replied because Mary was painting the walls in Amanda's room, that she had began to call the nursery after she had started talking about that second child.

”Wow”, John said. ”It's very... green.”

Mary stared down at her brush for a few seconds, as if the paint had been a completely different colour when she had used it.

”You don't like it?” she asked and looked at him.

”It's not bad”, he said, and he wasn't lying. He liked all colours, after all he hadn't seen them for the biggest part of his life. ”I just thought we settled on yellow.”

He was actually sure they had. Colours were the only thing he really payed attention to and he had taken part in the planning. Well, he had pointed at the yellow and almost shouted at her that it was the one.

”Oh, right”, Mary said and squeezed the paintbrush a little. ”They were out.”

John looked at the wall she was finished with.

”I didn't want to wait for the delivery.”

Green wasn't all that bad.

”It's okay though,” she stated more than asked. ”Isn't it?”

”Yeah”, John said. ”It's fine.”

He put an arm her waist and kissed her on the cheek. She groaned slightly. She was like that when she was busy, didn't want him to interrupt.

”I need to go see Sherlock.”

”Really?” Mary said. ”I thought you said it wasn't every day?”

”It's not”, John sighed. ”But it's this day.”

He said both hello and goodbye to his daughter who was sleeping in her crib and then he rushed off to get the tube to Baker Street and solve a bank robbery.

***

Sherlock opened the door before he had even rang the bell. He poked out his head and looked to both sides before turning around and running up the stairs.

”I need to show you something!” he shouted, and John followed him up.

Two and a half years earlier he would not have gotten up those stairs that fast, not with his limp and his cane. Now he was practically bouncing up, after Sherlock, after adventures.

”What is it?” he asked eagerly.

Sherlock turned a laptop on the coffee table towards John and he sat down in the same chair where he had sat the day before. On the screen was an ID – a driver's license – for the man they were looking for, Sebastian Moran.

”Where'd you get this?” John asked.

”Brother in the government”, Sherlock said and waved it off with his right hand. ”I've got more too.”

John stared at Moran's piercing blue eyes and wondered why he felt like he recognized him, while Sherlock paced the room and rubbed his hands together.

”He's an orphan”, he explained. ”Parents died in a car crash when he was eight, he grew up at an orphanage. Might have been a victim of sexual assault, I don't know, but I don't want to rule out the possibility just yet.”

Moran's eyes were staring right at John, right into his soul.

”How ghastly”, he said.

”Indeed”, Sherlock agreed with a neutral voice. ”He dropped out of school when he was 16, took some odd jobs. Joined the army eventually, and this is where it gets exciting.”

He looked positively delighted, but John felt a bit cold. He rubbed a hand against his arm and continued to look at Sebastian Moran, continued to try and see him as a poor little orphan boy without anything or anyone. But it was hard, as soulless and cruel he looked. His eyes had no compassion in them at all.

”He became a sniper”, Sherlock continued. ”A bloody good one too. He shipped off to Afghanistan as the best in his platoon, a few years before you got there. He was still there when you came, and by then he was the absolute best, no one could compete with him.”

_That's it,_ John thought.  _That's why I know him, I must have met him in Afghanistan._

”But there was a slight problem. The men from his platoon were scared of him. They said he was too careless, too emotionless and not enough compassionate.”

He scoffed as if it was ridicilous to think of those traits as bad qualities. John wasn't surprised though. He was a bit scared himself just looking at his picture.

”Of course those with the power didn't take notice, they thought it was good even, I would assume. That is, until he killed a boy.”

”He did what?” John asked.

Sherlock stared at him with an amused smirk on his face.

”Killed a boy”, he replied. ”He was ten, Moran shot him right in the head when he was going home from school. No one could believe it was an accident, there wasn't a battle and he was the best. He never missed.”

John realized what the thing in his eyes was. It was the complete lack of compassion and respect for human life. Those were the eyes of a man that had shot a ten year old boy in the head and killed him.

”Why'd he do it?”

”He said he freed him.”

”From what?”

Sherlock shrugged his shoulders.

”From life, I suppose.”

John shuddered.

”Anyway”, the detective continued. ”They sent him home. He hasn't had a legal source of income since, but I didn't think this was a first either.”

”What do you think he's been doing?” John asked and looked into the eyes of the killer.

”Nothing nice”, Sherlock said.

He was looking out the window now, the palms of his hands against each other and his fingers against his chin. He was nowhere near as bad as he had been when John had ran into him on the street two days earlier, he didn't need to be fixed anymore. But it was John's turn to be fixed now.

”What do we do now?” he asked.

”What do you think we should do now?” Sherlock counter asked.

John furrowed his brows and tried to think, tried to reason like the master detective even though he knew he could never do it half as good. At first it seemed like there were no options at all, nothing to do whatsoever. Then suddenly there were lots of options, way too many, and he couldn't for his life figure out which ones were bad and which ones were good, which ones to try and which ones to dismiss completely. It was hard, solving probable bank robberies. But still not as hard as painting the nursery green with Mary.

”We could talk some more to Abigail Windsor”, he suggested after a few moments of careful consideration.

He didn't exactly want to meet that bleak, grey mouse with weak voice again, but it was a logical move to make and could gain them more information.

”Yes”, Sherlock said and hummed. ”That is a good idea. But unforunately not a possibility.”

”Why not?” John asked.

He had screwed up again. He wasn't good at being a detective and solving crimes.

”Because Abigail was killed last night”, Sherlock said.

”What?”

”Technically she died from a heroin overdose, but she didn't use and it's a too big of a coincidence that she would suddenly decide to the day she meets with me, don't you think?”

John nodded. It did seem unlikely.

”So, you're thinking-” he started.

”I'm thinkin that our friend Moran paid his old beau a visit and convinced her to 'have a good time',” Sherlock said.

Sebastian Moran had killed a ten year old boy in Afghanistan, of course he could have killed Abigail Windsor in her fancy apartment. John should have felt scared, but he didn't. He only felt exhillerated, excited, ready to go, willing to do anything. He certainly wasn't bored.

”Then what?” he asked. ”The bank?”

”Hm”, Sherlock mumbled, got back from his place by the window and started digging in his couch for something. ”Not yet.”

He fished up a black, unnoticeable wallet that appeared strikinly dull to belong to him, and waved it in front of John with a smile.

”First we're going to the hospital.”

”Hospital?” John asked.

”Abigail's hospital”, Sherlock explained. ”Where she met the woman that introduced her to Moran.”

”You think she's got anything to do with this?”

”I think”, the detective smirked, ”that they didn't meet by chance.”

John smiled.

”You're awfully sure.”

”Nothing ever happens by chance”, Sherlock said, ”does it?”

John thought about it. He supposed he was right.

”So he's not alone in this?” John asked. ”You think there are more people involved.”

Sherlock sneered.

”No one robs a bank on their own, John.”

John didn't know much about bank robberies, but when he thought about it he hadn't ever read about one that someone had performed on their own. It made it all the more exciting, that there were more people like Moran out there. Complicated, but exciting.

”You're coming with, aren't you?” Sherlock asked as he grabbed his coat from the hanger by the door.

John stared at Sebastian Moran one last time and tried to remember when he could have possibly met him. He knew he recognized those eyes, but he couldn't place them anywhere.

”Of course I am”, he replied.

***

They got a cab and Sherlock gave the driver an address that John didn't catch. The radio was on, but it was too quiet for them to actually hear the song. All John could hear was the rhythm and humming, not enough to make out what song it was.

”If Abigail's dead”, he began. ”Then who are you doing it for?”

Sherlock furrowed a brow as he looked out the window.

”Well, for me”, he replied. ”Something to do, a case. I don't do it for the money.”

”Of course not”, John said. ”But, I mean, why not take on a new case and help another client? One that is actually alive?”

Sherlock chuckled as if the idea was absolutely ridicilous.

”There's still a bank out to get robbed”, he explained. ”I suppose my client is Alistair Windsor now, then.”

John nodded in understanding even though he wasn't looking his way. He tried to listen to what the song was. _You're in my..._ Veins? He listened even harder, just because he had nothing else to do.

_And I can not get you out_

The cab stopped. Sherlock payed while John got out and saw what hospital they were outside of.

”It's my hospital”, he said. ”Why didn't you say we were going to St Bart's?”

”Didn't I?”

Sherlock walked past him and pulled up his collar.

”You might want to stay outside”, he spoke as he walked towards the entrance. ”I'm going to be questioning your colleagues.”

”So this was Abigail's hospital?” John asked. ”This is where she met that woman that introduced her to Moran?”

”Obviously.”

John sighed. But he didn't really mind waiting outside, it would be difficult to explain to everyone the day after. Why he had been going around with an amateur detective that suspected them of shady businesses. So he parked himself at a bench and waited.

The sun started to disappear and it the world got darker, it was autumn. Leaves were blowing in the wind and John started freezing.

”Christ”, he said after half an hour.

Sherlock was probably not coming back out anytime soon.

John suddenly found himself very aware that inside that very building, Abigail had met the person that would seal her faith, and because of her she was dead all too young. And inside that same building John had met Sherlock, wearing the same coat he was wearing that day. In there he had seen his first colours, in there he had met M-

”Oh no”, he said out loud to no one in particular, because the street was empty and he was alone.

He had met Mary there, when she had been the receptionist, when she had worked there.

_Is that so wise?_ she had asked.

But that couldn't be. It couldn't possibly be.

Before John could think any more of it, Sherlock burst out the door and John flew up on his feet.

”Aren't you cold?” Sherlock asked and started waving for a cab.

”Did you find her?” John asked.

He hoped and prayed that he had, that it was someone else. He would give anything for it to be someone else, and that Sherlock had found her.

But Sherlock hadn't found her.

”I think she quit long ago”, he said as a cab pulled up beside them. ”But I had expected that.”

She had quit long ago. John was cold down to his bones and his arm was stiff when he opened the cab door.

_Really?_

John tried to breathe but it was hard, suddenly everything was hard. It started blurring before his eyes.

_God no,_ he thought.  _It can't be._

But it could be, and he knew it. He could feel it. He hoped he wasn't right, he hoped it wasn't true. But deep down...

”Where to?” said the cab driver.

He sounded too jolly for John. He wasn't supposed to be happy, not when something like that was happening.

He thought about Mary when she had killed that bird, and he thought about her frozen and silent at the kitchen counter with the potato peeler in her hand.

_Can I at least know what it's about?_

Before Sherlock could say anything John had given the driver his address.

Because nothing ever happens by chance.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer guys! Two more chapters coming, everything is going to be revealed...


	9. Chapter 9

Sherlock was waiting outside, he leaned against the wall and looked at John when he walked up the steps to the front door. As if he understood, like he understood anything at all. He couldn't possibly know what it felt like.

John could hear his own heart beating, steady and calm even though he wasn't. He tried to contain himself and breathe, but it was hard. Everything was hard. The world had a tone of grey to it, he was moving in slow motion and there was a pounding in his head.

Mary was standing in the kithen, rocking Amanda against her chest and humming quietly.

”John?” she said.

She could see that something was wrong, she was a lot of things but stupid wasn't one of them. John clenched and unclenched his fists and stared at her, to see if he could see anything there. Sometimes he had seen it, the darkness in her eyes and the aggressiveness in her movements. But he couldn't see it at all now, when she was rocking their baby girl to sleep and humming her a lullaby.

”Tell me”, he said.

Her careful smile didn't fade at all, she only tilted her head a little in confusion.

”Tell you what?” ske asked.

Her voice was so soft. He had fallen asleep to that voice, with his head on that chest and those hands in his hair. Something was wrong, something is very wrong with a world where that can happen.

”Everything”, he said. ” _Everything._ ”

He wasn't even scared of her. He was married to her, she had given birth to his child. It was hard to be scared of her, to think of the things she could be capable of. Not after he had seen her jump around the kitchen in only her pants, singing a show tune while cooking him pancakes.

”What are you talking about?” she asked.

Now she stopped smiling, now she looked angry and irritated. And tired. Like he had asked her stuff like that every day and she was sick of it, like it was only nagging.

”I'm talking about the Windsor bank!” he shouted and banged his fist at the table. ”I'm talking about Abigail Windsor who's bloody _dead_ now!”

She sighed. Who was she even? Who only sighed when he confronted her about a dead girl? Who was just aggitated and tired that he was asking questions?

”So”, she said, still rocking the baby in her arms. ”What do you want to know?”

John wanted to know a lot of things. He wanted to know if she had known, when she had introduced her to Moran. He wanted to know if she would have been able to stop it if she had wanted to. He wanted to know how she could sleep at night with that on her conscience and how she could rock their one year old baby with all that blood on her hands.

”Did you introduce her to Moran?” he asked.

She looked at him for a second.

”Yes”, she replied.

She sounded too neutral, too indifferent. Like she didn't care at all.

”And that's why you worked at the hospital?” John continued.

His wife rolled her eyes at him.

”Yes”, she repeated.

He stared at her. She stared back. Something was starting to show in her eyes. A bit of understanding, a little compassion, perhaps some humanity.

”It was part of the plan”, she said. ”But you were never part of the plan, okay? I wasn't supposed to date you, but I fell in love with you.”

Amanda started moving in her arms.

”That's true, John. I love you.”

He heard her loud and clear, even though his heart was beating so loudly. He remembered her smile on their wedding day, the faint sound of her soft voice when she said 'I do'. But he also remembered the darkness in her eyes, he remembered the day when she had killed that bird.

_I put it out of it's misery,_ she had said.

_I freed him,_ Sebastian Moran had said.

But not about a wounded and probably dying bird, but about a boy. A living, breathing, feeling boy with an entire life ahead of him, that he had shot in the head and killed. John couldn't help but wonder what she had done, if she had ever done anything like that. If she had done anything worse.

”Please forgive me”, she begged him.

Tears started escaping her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.

”Please, John. I love you.”

He exhaled. He exhaled again. His head was pounding, he couldn't think. It was empty up there, no emotions or thoughts. Just emptiness.

”Sherlock's outside”, he said.

She nodded. Her lips were shaking.

”You have to help us with this.”

She nodded again.

”Anything”, she said. ”I'll do anything if you give me another chance, anything.”

But John didn't want anything from her now. Nothing at all.

***

They sat down around the kitchen table, Sherlock positioned beside John and Mary on the other side. Amanda was still over her shoulder and she was patting her back gently.

”So”, she said.

”So”, Sherlock repeated.

She looked at him, even though John was staring right at her. Trying to figure out who she was, trying to find out if he knew her. He wasn't sure he did, wasn't sure at all.

”The bank”, Sherlock said. ”The Windsor bank. It will get robbed, won't it?”

Mary nodded her head slowly. Amanda started crying.

”Yes”, Mary answered. ”Yes, it will.”

She turned her head and looked at her daughter with tears in her eyes. John still couldn't see the motherly love in them.

_Poor child,_ he thought.  _A father that doesn't love you and a mother like that._

A mother that had killed the wounded bird without flinching. A mother that had sighed when he had asked her about a murder that she was involved in. The death of a young girl who was bleak and grey but had done nothing wrong in her short life.

_Poor child,_ John thought.

He didn't even know if he meant Amanda or Abigail anymore.

”How does Moran and Abigail fit into all this?” Sherlock asked. ”How do you?”

He was calm and relaxed, cool and professional. John wanted to punch him right in his smug face and sharp cheekbones.

”Abigail was just one way in, to get close”, Mary said as she placed her forehead on her daughter's and tried to smile at her. ”But we found another, easier one, and we let her go.”

Sherlock snickered.

”Do you want me to believe that for 'just one way in' you took on a new job and Moran dated a girl for months?” he said with an amused smile at his lips. ”Do you think I'm that stupid?”

Mary sighed. She looked at John for half a second, before she directed her attention towards the detective again and stared at him in a way John thought not many had dared to do.

”You don't understand”, she said. ”This is big, bigger than you think. He has hundreds of people, everywhere, doing everything, covering all possibilities. The bank isn't even all he's got going on right now, it's just a small part of it.”

Suddenly the detective tensed up and straightened his back.

”You said he”, he said. ”Who's _he_?”

John didn't care who he was, didn't want to solve the crime anymore. He didn't give a shit about the bank robbery, he didn't even give a shit about Abigail Windsor or Sebastian Moran. All he cared about in that moment was Mary, his wife, the mother of his child, the colours of his world. Who had lied to him every day he had known her. If he ever actually had known her.

”Jim Moriarty”, she said. ”He's a lot like you really, except people pay him to commit crimes and not solve them.”

”A consulting criminal”, Sherlock said.

Mary shrugged her shoulders.

”In a way.”

She looked at John again.

”John, I-”

”Shut up”, he said.

She shut up and looked down at the table. Amanda's crying was getting louder.

”How do you link to all this?” Sherlock asked.

Mary looked up at him.

”I've been part of his organisation since I was 20”, she explained, close to tears at this point. ”I've done all sorts of things for him, and I've never been able to escape. Until John.”

John rolled his eyes. He wanted to, but he couldn't believe her, not when every word she had said up until that moment had been a lie.

”Do you know how to contact him?” Sherlock asked.

”I haven't been part of it in forever”, Mary cried. ”I swear, I have-”

”That's not the point”, Sherlock calmly interrupted her. ”The point is, can you get in touch with Moriarty?”

The tears finally came, they escaped her eyes and started rolling down her cheeks. 

”Yes”, she said with a shaking voice. ”I have a phone number.”

”Call him”, Sherlock commanded. ”Set up a meeting.”

She stood up slowly.

”I need to do it in the other room”, she said. ”I need to do it alone.”

With Amanda crying on her shoulder it seemed like a sensible thing to do.

”Go on”, Sherlock told her.

Mary handed him her baby without saying a word, and he took it without protesting. He held her like something thin and fragile, made of glass, like he had never held a child in his entire life. It didn't seem unlikely that he never had.

Mary excited the room. John stared at the wall where she had sat and Sherlock looked into Amanda's eyes as if all the secrets of the universe were hidden in her baby blues.

”Oh”, he said.

”What?” John asked without looking their way.

The baby stopped crying. On the other side of the wall they could hear the muffled sound of Mary's voice but not make out any words.

”Nothing”, Sherlock replied.

***

Mary had it scribbled down with a sloppy handwriting on the back of a crumpled receipt. She swapped it for her child and Sherlock looked at it.

”I think I'm done here then”, he said.

He showed the paper to John. An address and a time.

”It's for tomorrow”, Mary said. ”Does anyone want tea?”

John didn't want tea.

”No thank you”, Sherlock said and gave her a thankful smile. ”I'll be leaving now.”

”I'll see you out”, John said.

He wanted to go outside and breath fresh air, because he was suffocating inside that house and the walls were closing in on him. They heard Amanda start crying again before they opened the door, but John only closed it behind them when they were outside.  
”I'll pick you up tomorrow then”, Sherlock said. ”If you're still in, that is.”

His voice was softer than it usually was, and he spoke slower, like he was choosing every word. It didn't matter much to John, because he felt numb, dazed and like he was dreaming, all at once.

”Of course I am”, he said. ”I'll be in for the rest of my life.”

Sherlock smiled, the biggest and most genuine smile John had ever seen on his face. It was almost a grinny, a silly, childish grin, all happy and soppy. But John couldn't help but to smile back. He didn't feel like smiling, he didn't plan to, it just happened. His mouth had a mind of its own and had decided to smile, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

And as it turned out, Sherlock's mouth had a mind of its own too. Quickly, before John could even react, Sherlock leaned forwards and tilted his head down. And then his lips were on his.

It wasn't a deep kiss, it wasn't long. It was soft and only on the lips and it lasted for two seconds at the most, but it felt like an eternity. A glorious, wonderful eternity.

And there the stars were. They had been hidden in Sherlock's lips all along, and suddenly they were everywhere and nowhere and John didn't know what to do with himself.

So he kissed him back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go guys, one chapter left! We've still got some loose ends to tie up, but the end is near...


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dramatic music playing in the background* This is it guys. Are you ready for the showdown? The last confrontation? The big revelation? The FINAL CHAPTER?  
> Yeah whatever, just read it

John lied awake for most of the night, thinking about it. He couldn't get it out of his head, because he knew. He didn't think or believe, he knew that it was true. And he asked her, when she was toasting him his bread that morning.

”Is she even my daughter?” he asked her.

Because he knew now what he had seen in Amanda's eyes, and he knew why he had thought he recognized Moran. He hadn't seen him before, but those eyes. He had seen those eyes before.

Mary sobbed, her back was turned against him.

”She isn't, is she?” he asked.

He wanted her to say it, even though he already knew. He knew exactly what she would say.

”No”, she replied weakly.

She supported herself against the bench. John wondered if she was crying or if it was all an act, but he didn't actually care. It didn't matter to him how she felt, not anymore.

”Moran?”

She nodded slightly.

”Yes.”

And he nodded too. He had already known, he wasn't surprised. But he didn't know what to do with that information, didn't know how he was supposed to feel. He was angry of course, but then it was just another one of all Mary's lies, and John couldn't be more angry at one than another. He was a bit relieved, truth be told. Because it meant there wasn't anything to wrong with him, because he wasn't supposed to feel anything for Amanda when she wasn't even his daughter.

And it meant that there was nothing keeping him there. At least, not the child anyway.

John exhaled deeply.

”What colour are my eyes?” he asked.

Mary turned around. Her eyes were red and tears were streaming down her cheeks. John just stared at her.

”It's a complicated life”, she said. ”And I only did it once, John, I swear. We-”

It was completely ridicilous that she would think he was more upset that she had cheated on him than that she was part of some criminal organization. That she had killed people, that she had lied to him from second one. She wasn't even who she had said she was, and that was why she thought he would be angry? John was offended. To him it was far worse that her lover had killed an innocent young woman – not to mention the little boy in Afghanistan – than the fact that she even had one at all, and that she had a child with him. That stuff didn't matter, not compared to all the rest, not considering all the other things she had done.

”I don't care”, John said. ” _Shut up,_ I don't care.”

That was the first time he ever told his wife to shut up. He had wanted to do it so many times, and it felt good. And she just cried.

”What colour are my eyes?” he repeated.

Because there was a room in that house with green walls when they were supposed to have been yellow. They had settled on yellow, the shop hadn't been out. He knew that. But the walls were green, green like puke.

”John”, Mary said behind the tears.

She was nothing to him, not anymore. She was fake, she was a hoax. He wasn't in love with her and he had never been, because he had never even known her.

”What colour are my eyes?” he said again.

He would say it as many times as it would take, even though he already knew. She needed to confirm it. And the second she did, he would be out the door. And he wouldn't come back, ever.

Mary just stared at him, crying. And she shook her head slightly, and it was all he needed.

John exhaled. He didn't know what to feel.

”Alright”, he said.

She dried her tears with her sleeves and took out his bread from the toaster. Without saying a word she put it on a plate, and placed it right in front of him. John didn't feel like eating, not now. He had more important things to do, better places to be, more interesting people to meet.

”I'm not hungry”, he said.

”Okay”, she replied.

”Is Amanda awake yet?”

Mary shook her head.

”That's alright”, John said. ”I'll say goodbye to her some other time.”

”Okay”, Mary said.

”Okay.”

He stood up, and he smiled at her. She didn't smile back, and he didn't hug her. He considered a handshake because it was the furthest he would go, but that wouldn't do. Not with someone he had been married to for a year and a half. So all she got was that smile, that fake smile. John didn't really think she deserved more either.

He walked out and saw her standing in the window, looking at him. She looked just as sad as any woman would when her husband leaves her, except she wasn't any woman. She was just a really good liar. His toasted bread was still on the kitchen table. He didn't even wave.

***

Sherlock's cab pulled up beside him, and John got in. The detective smiled compassionately at him.

”How are you?” he asked.

John had never thought the great Sherlock Holmes would ever ask anyone such a question.

”I don't know”, he replied.

The cab started driving. Sherlock was beautiful, especially like that. On his way to solve a case, with all that blood pumping through his veins and his eyes wide open of excitement. When he was on a case he always looked like he had waited for that exact moment his entire life, like it was the happiest he had ever been, like there wasn't one that could ever be better. It was beautiful, and he was beautiful.

”Your eyes are blue”, John said, before he had even thought the thought. ”I just-”

Sherlock stared at him, and there was nothing else that John could say.

”Your eyes are blue”, he repeated.

Sherlock's lips turned upwards into a small, crooked smile. Suddenly he had a look of concern on his face, and something more that John couldn't distinguish, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

”Listen”, Sherlock started. ”About last night-”

But John wasn't ready yet, he hadn't thought. Not a single coherent, logical thought. He couldn't do it just yet.

”I wa-” he tried to interrut.

” _I know_ ”, Sherlock said. ”I know you were upset and that Mary had been lying to you, and I'm sorry.”

He exhaled.

”I shouldn't have done that”, he contined. ”It was stupid and reckless of me and it wasn't the right time, I shouldn't have done it.”

John nodded, though he didn't agree completely. He had rather enjoyed it, that much he had thought.

”We don't need to talk about it now”, Sherlock said. ”We _won't_ talk about it now. We'll do this thing, get it overwith, and then we can talk. We'll just do this first.”

”Alright”, John agreed.

That was fine. As soon as it was over, John would think about it. He would consider every possibility and think everything throuhg, and he would make a decision. He just needed to think about something else for a little while longer first. And Sherlock smiled at him again.

”But there was one thing I meant to tell you”, he said.

”What?”

John could see Sherlock gathering up the strenght to say it, and he knew that it was something big and something bad.

”Windsor's lawyers work for Small's”, Sherlock said.

Mary was a secretary for Small's. Another lie. She wasn't out, she hadn't stopped. She was still very much in, still very much doing the same things she had always done. John sighed.

”I'm sorry”, Sherlock said.

”Don't be”, John muttered. ”It's my fault and not yours.”

And they were silent for a few seconds, John staring straight ahead and Sherlock looking at him.

”I should've known”, John said.

”There was no way”, Sherlock assured him. ”She was good.”

But John hadn't meant that. He had meant that other thing that he was supposed to have known, the thing he was supposed to have known a very long time ago.

***

The cab stopped at a harbour. It smelled of ocean and seagulls were screeching above them. John stared at the horizon while Sherlock payed, and wondered what was beyond it. If it was better there than where he was.

”This way”, Sherlock said.

He walked ahead of John and led him to what looked like an abandoned warehouse. It was huge, but empty apart from a container near the gigantic, open, seaview doors. Sherlock opened the door, and closed it.

”Nothing there”, he commented.

John nodded. There was a balcony of sorts on the other side of the building, there was a staircase leading up to it and up there were boxes and a door, probably to an office. John put his hands in his pockets and walked after Sherlock.

”He's not here”, he stated. ”Do you think he stood us up?”

Sherlock didn't reply.

”Or do you think Mary tricked us?” John asked.

”No”, the detective said. ”He'll come.”

They were walking slowly, side by side.

”I've looked over old cases”, Sherlock said. ”He's connected to more than I had realized. He's been taunting me for years now. He'll come.”

”What does he want with you?” John asked.

Suddenly Sherlock stopped in the middle of the room. He got down on his knees and picked up a piece of paper. John got a bad feeling.

” _Ciao_ ”, Sherlock read. ” _J.M.”_

It wasn't even raining. It was one of those days where it's supposed to rain, it always does in movies, but it didn't. It was a nice day, if a bit chilly. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

”Sherlock.”

There was a red dot on his chest. He just looked at it. John looked at it too. And it was only a mere second, but it felt like an eternity. Then a gunshot.

_Ciao._

John turned around. He saw movement on the balcony, behind all the boxes. There the father of his wife's child was lurking, but he wouldn't shoot John. He knew it, it had been too long now. And Sebastian Moran never misses. Maybe Mary had told him not to kill her husband. What good that would do, because the world was turning into one where John didn't want to live at all.

He turned around. Sherlock was still staring at his own chest. For a second, John couldn't see anything there. And he had the time to think that he was fine and that everything was alright, before blood started running through the wound with the speed of a waterfall.

”Oh God”, John said. ”No.”

Sherlock dropped the paper and it fell slowly to the ground.

”I think I know what he wants with me”, he said.

Moriarty was done with him now. He was tired of playing, and Sherlock had gotten too close on this case. It had been time.

And without saying another word, Sherlock slowly got down on his knees. He looked up at John, before he started falling backwards. John rushed forwards and just managed to grab his head before it hit the ground.

”What do I do?” John asked. ”Sherlock, what do I do?”

Sherlock only answered him with coughs. John knew that there was nothing he could do. He was a doctor, he could see that he had been hit in the lung. He knew that Sherlock would die there, and he knew he would be holding his head in his hands when he did.

”God no”, he said. ”Please, no.”

John could feel it slipping through his fingers, everything. All the plans, all the future, all the dreams. Without Sherlock he would have no life, he would have nothing. He would be empty and living his boring life, and he would want to kill himself every single day of it. He was losing everything, all of it. It was slipping through his fingers and he couldn't do anything about it.

”Please no.”

Sherlock raised his arm, led his hand to his chest and dipped a finger in his own blood. He held it up in front of him and he coughed, and he coughed.

”I never thought it'd be red”, he said.

And John knew. That smile Sherlock had given him when he had told him that his eyes were blue, the half finished painting of a landscape he had in his apartment. With green grass, a blue sky and a brown tree. John had walked into the clinic, and Sherlock had been standing there by Mary. John had been looking at the floor, and then he had looked up at the both of them. And somehow he had registered how Sherlock had stumbled on the spot, how he had grabbed the desk and stared at him. But John had looked at Mary.

And now Sherlock was dying, in his lap. Staring at the last colour he would ever see, before he lowered his arm and let it rest by his side. John could hear him wheezing with every breath, and he started coughing again. His breathing got more strained and his heartbeat slower. John had seen many people die, and he could feel it coming.

Just as Sherlock took his last breath, John closed his eyes. He closed them, and Sherlock died right there and then. But he didn't open them, couldn't physically open them. Because he was certain, and he was so scared. He was so scared that when he would open them, all the colours would be gone. It would be black and white and different tones of grey, and all the marvel and the beauty would be gone forever and he wouldn't ever get to see them again. Because in this world, there are no second chances. You only get one chance, you only get some colours, you only get one person.

But there was one thing John was even more afraid of, something that would be even worse. A possibility that would be the worse possible at that moment. He couldn't even think about it, didn't dare too. And he refused to open his eyes; not only because the colours could be gone. But because they could still be there.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye old friends, that was all I had to offer. I hope you've enjoyed this journey as much as I have, though it has been a lot longer than I ever thought it would be.  
> Thank you so much to all the readers, the kudos and the comments! I have appreciated all of you and the things you have done very much and I hope I haven't disappointed you at any point during this story.


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